Pubdate: Tue, 19 Dec 2000
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2000 News World Communications, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washtimes.com/
Author: Peter Muello, Associated Press

BRAZIL BRACES FOR COLOMBIA DRUG FIGHT

Town Finds Itself On Front Lines

TABATINGA, Brazil - The battered minibus lurches over the last speed bump 
and hurtles down the Avenue of Friendship, past a perpetually closed 
blue-and-white border post, around a curve and out of Brazil.

Suddenly, the sun-baked concrete gives way to shady streets lined with 
palmettos and red-flowered poincianas. Shop signs are in Spanish instead of 
Portuguese, a new set of mayoral candidates stares from billboards, and the 
bars tout Aguila beer instead of Antarctica.

Welcome to Leticia, Colombia. No passport, no visa, no border check. No 
questions.

Brazilians, Peruvians and Colombians, pesos and reals, samba and salsa have 
always mingled easily in this remote corner of Brazil's western Amazon, 
some 2,500 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro.

But now, Brazil is worried about its neighbor. There is fear that 
Colombia's $7.5 billion plan to eradicate drugs may lead cocaine 
traffickers, guerrillas and refugees to seek safety over the border. As 
Brazilians prepare for a possible invasion, this sleepy Amazon town 
suddenly finds itself in the front lines.

In September, the government began Operation Cobra, a three-year program of 
heightened vigilance along Brazil's 1,020-mile jungle border with Colombia. 
The federal police increased its border force from 20 agents to 180 and set 
up seven bases, including one on each of the four rivers that flow from 
Colombia into Brazil.

"The whole world was talking about the Colombia Plan," said Mauro Sposito, 
the federal police chief in charge of the operation. "We had to do something."

With 18 boats, two planes and a helicopter, police are equipped to find and 
turn back any intruders, Chief Sposito says. Miles of marshy jungle form a 
natural land barrier, and police do their best to monitor movement by water 
or air.

 From the sky, they hunt for clandestine airstrips and occasionally land to 
blow holes in them with dynamite. Congress is debating how to implement a 
"shoot-down law" that would allow Brazil to fire on planes that illegally 
enter its airspace.

Things aren't expected to heat up until the United States delivers a 
promised $1.3 billion in aid and equipment for Colombia. But the concern 
was evident in late October at a hemisphere-wide meeting of defense 
ministers at Manaus, Brazil, 700 miles east of Tabatinga.

Venezuela and Ecuador complained loudly about a possible "spillover" from 
the crackdown. Brazil offered to help with surveillance data from its $1.4 
billion Amazon radar system - when it's finished - and tighter controls on 
money laundering and chemicals used to make cocaine.

Still, most countries feel it's not their fight and they don't want to get 
dragged into it. Chief Sposito notes that the Colombian guerrillas are 
fighting far from Brazil, near Ecuador, and the drug kingpins are in the 
cities, not the jungle. Brazilian national security is not at risk, he says.

"We took the lead so we wouldn't be surprised, but we're really not too 
worried," he said. "The guerrillas and the traffickers don't want to come 
here, and if Colombians come as citizens, what's the problem?"

One big problem could be refugees, said Leticia's mayor, John Alex Benjumea 
Moreno.

"We are very worried about this," he said. "If there are large movements of 
refugees here, it will cause a great social problem and we have no money to 
deal with it."

The porous border also would make that a problem for Tabatinga, its 
Brazilian neighbor. The two cities are bound by economic ties and by the 
Amazon jungle stretching away on all sides.

They also share a shadowy past. Older residents recall the boom years of 
the 1980s, when outsiders arrived with suitcases full of cash and Leticia, 
a city of 30,000, boasted 15 bordellos. Money was easy, and violence was 
routine.

"It was the bonanza of drug trafficking," conceded Mr. Benjumea, a former 
radio journalist. "But we managed to do away with it. Today, it is almost 
extinct here."

Colombian authorities in Leticia control trafficking with help from a U.S. 
military-operated radar station nearby. The military uses the data to chase 
illegal aircraft and has cut down the air movement of drugs.

The decline of the drug trade sent the area's economy into a tailspin, but 
it has slowly recovered by investing in other activities, such as fishing, 
electronics and import-export businesses, Mr. Benjumea says. Today, Leticia 
is a sharp contrast to shabby Tabatinga.

"We are worried about Tabatinga. There still is much violence and drugs 
there," Mr. Benjumea said. "Operation Cobra will be good for us. It will 
bring us security."

The U.S. military also applauds.

"It's good to see that Brazil is concerned," said Steve Lucas, a spokesman 
for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. "With narco-trafficking, it's the 
balloon effect - you squeeze them one place and they bulge out another."

At a narrows in the Amazon River, two hours by speedboat from Tabatinga, a 
federal police barge sits at anchor near a Tikuna Indian village. This is 
Base Anzol - Fishhook Base in Portuguese - one of the choke points of 
Operation Cobra.

On board, an attack is already under way.

"Fresh blood," said Officer Mario Mendes, watching in amusement as a 
visitor swats at a cloud of midges. "Forget the repellent. It just excites 
them."

The other agents on deck laugh, and Chico, the base's pet monkey, peers up 
in curiosity. At this backwater outpost, bugs and boredom prevail.

Now, Anzol is getting ready for new enemies.

"We're already on alert, and the other bases also will be stepping up 
operations," said Officer Mendes, who was pulled off his assignment in the 
southeastern coastal city of Macae for a tour of duty at Anzol. "You can 
imagine how thrilled my wife was," he said.

Equipped with radar, radios and a 150-horsepower motor launch that can 
outrun almost anything on the river, police check every vessel that goes 
by, around the clock, looking for contraband, particularly drugs.

"We've found cocaine inside fish, fruits, statues of saints, soap, fuel 
drums, coils of rope, shampoo, electronic appliances, tubes soldered to the 
bottom of the boat," Officer Mendes said, ticking off the list on his 
fingers. "These guys are very creative."

Still, some doubt Colombia's drug crackdown or Operation Cobra will change 
much. Colombians and Brazilians are bonded here, and things will go on much 
as before, people say.

"You can get anything you want here. Cocaine, anything," said Waldecy 
Bitencourt, a waiter at the Te Contei? (translation: You Happy?) bar and 
restaurant in Tabatinga. "You'd have to throw a net over the whole area to 
stop it, but there's just too much money coming in and out to do that."
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