Pubdate: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle Contact: Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260 Fax: (713) 220-3575 Website: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Author: John Otis BATTLES RAGE IN COLOMBIA OVER POLITICS AND COCA Right-Wingers, Marxists Fight For Drug Trade PUERTO ASIS, Colombia -- As he sipped soda under a shade tree, a high-ranking leader of Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries explained why his troops recently ignited fierce fighting with Marxist guerrillas in the drug-producing state of Putumayo. "We are going after them," said the commander, who goes by the nom de guerre Falcon. "My main interest is in taking control of their territory and cutting off their finances" from coca, the raw material of cocaine, and other aspects of the narcotics industry. "If we allow the guerrillas to operate here, with all of the coca in Putumayo, they will be able to support all of their other fronts throughout the country," said Falcon, who admitted that the paramilitaries as well as the rebels earn millions of dollars annually from the cocaine trade. In what experts describe as a struggle for domination of the lucrative cocaine business, fighting between paramilitaries and guerrillas has plunged Putumayo into chaos in the last few weeks. "The state is completely blockaded," Putumayo Gov. Jorge Devia said last week. A remote jungle region on the Ecuadorean border, Colombia's southern state of Putumayo is home to almost half of the nation's 300,000-acre coca crop. Stepped-up anti-drug operations by U.S.-trained Colombian troops that are scheduled to begin in the next few months will focus on the state. Following a series of paramilitary raids on Putumayo's rebel-controlled towns in late September, the guerrillas put up roadblocks and prohibited travel by highway and river in the state, saying that anyone who violated the order would be considered a military target. The travel ban is part of a guerrilla tactic to keep tabs on the local population and prevent paramilitaries from moving freely into rebel zones. Except for a trickle of flights, Putumayo remains cut off from the rest of the country. Puerto Asis and other towns are quickly running out of food, gasoline and drinking water. Devia traveled to the Colombian capital of Bogota last week to plead for help. On Wednesday, the federal government began airlifting emergency supplies to Putumayo and dispatched army reinforcements in an effort to take back control of the roads. A few hundred refugees reportedly have made their way from Putumayo to Ecuador, where aid organizations are scurrying to provide food and shelter. "The clashes are intense. They are fighting for control of cocaine production," Colombian Interior Minister Humberto de la Calle said of the guerrillas and paramilitaries. Neither side, however, has released casualty figures. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation's largest Marxist rebel group known as the FARC, has operated in Putumayo for decades, funding its movement, in part, through taxes on the narcotics trade and by providing protection to drug traffickers. In 1998, however, the paramilitaries began moving into Puerto Asis and other Putumayo towns in an effort to expel the FARC. The paramilitaries, who have been widely blamed for most of the human rights abuses in Colombia's civil war, sprang up in the 1980s to protect large landowners and drug dealers from the guerrillas. The militias' ranks continued to grow even after the Colombian government quickly declared them illegal. Today, paramilitary fighters number about 5,000. Most of the armed bands, including Falcon's, fight under an umbrella organization called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. In an interview near Puerto Asis, Falcon said that his troops began their recent wave of assaults in Putumayo at the request of merchants, who had grown tired of paying monthly "war taxes" to the FARC. "They said, `We want the paramilitaries to come here to get rid of the guerrillas,' " Falcon said, as several of his camouflage-clad troops stood watch in a cow pasture. "They saw how we had cleaned things up in Puerto Asis, how the businesses were no longer being extorted, and how the community was living in peace. People can go out at night and dance or attend sporting events -- things that you can't do when the guerrillas are around," he said. Over the years, the paramilitaries have proved to be far more effective than the Colombian army in the battle against the guerrillas, mainly because of their dirty-war tactics. By assassinating guerrilla leaders as well as their suspected civilian collaborators, the paramilitaries have routed the FARC from Puerto Asis, La Hormiga, Orito and several other key centers of Putumayo's drug trade. According to international observers, some paramilitary units work in coordination with the Colombian army and police. The army, which will receive the bulk of an $862 million U.S. aid package designed to bolster Colombia's war against drugs, is under pressure to improve its human rights record. But the paramilitaries are under no such constraints. "The most dangerous guerrillas are the ones who don't wear a uniform," Falcon said in defending the paramilitaries' tactics. "Even though it may seem unsavory from a human rights standpoint, if I know someone is a rebel, and I capture him, he will be killed," he said. By contrast, Falcon added, "the rules of warfare that the police and army must follow are obsolete for this kind of war." The Colombian military, which is widely viewed as undermanned and poorly trained, has sent some troops into Putumayo's combat areas. But many critics believe that the army's strategy is to sit back and allow the paramilitaries to battle the rebels. "How is it possible that we are under siege and the army doesn't do anything?" asked Puerto Asis Mayor Manuel Alzate. Some observers say that the paramilitaries' close relationship with the police and army in Puerto Asis is obvious. One government investigator who requested anonymity said that paramilitary headquarters sits just two blocks from the town's military base. "The cooperation is very close," he said. "I've seen paramilitaries having drinks with police officers in the bars. They use the airport when they travel." But Col. Gabriel Diaz, chief of the army's 24th battalion in Putumayo, denied that the military operates in cahoots with the right-wing militias. "They haven't done any favors for us," he said. "We are fighting against them." The paramilitaries have undertaken a campaign of "social cleansing" in Puerto Assis. They have paraded burglars through the streets of town in the nude and have publicly humiliated women accused of having affairs with married men. According to Puerto Asis officials, paramilitaries were about to execute two teen-agers accused of rape when police intervened. However, a teacher who did not want his name used maintained that the town seems safer now that the guerrillas are no longer in control. "The paramilitaries walk around like they own the place," he said. "Things have calmed down here, and there are fewer killings." Others are troubled by the paramilitaries' growing involvement in the narcotics trade. The government investigator in Puerto Asis said that the paramilitaries are using the town's airport to transport cocaine and are gradually replacing the rebels as the region's main drug traffickers. In the interview, Falcon said that his troops tax drug dealers about $45 per kilogram of coca paste, which is later turned into powdered cocaine. The income allows him to maintain a force of about 600 troops in Putumayo. Falcon insisted, however, that his fighters are not outright drug traffickers. The paramilitary commander said he will put up no resistance once the U.S.-backed assault on the narcotics trade begins in Putumayo. He added that he supports a local initiative to voluntarily eradicate coca plants. "I'm not interested in controlling the drug trade," Falcon said. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens