Pubdate: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company Contact: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036 Fax: (212) 556-3622 Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Larry Rohter ECUADOR AFRAID AS A DRUG WAR HEADS ITS WAY LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador, Jan. 3 - Every country bordering Colombia fears that as the conflict there worsens and United States involvement grows, violence and coca cultivation will spill across the frontier into their territory. But in this dingy Amazon border town, that dreaded scenario has already become a reality. Hardly a day goes by now without right-wing paramilitary fighters and leftist guerrillas, ostensibly here on leave, killing each other on the streets or in bars. Refugees fleeing the intensifying combat in southern Colombia are also showing up and, as if in anticipation of the Washington-backed anti- drug offensive the Colombian government is to begin soon, affluent Colombians with no ties to this area are suddenly buying up land and stocking up on chemicals used to process cocaine. Of all of Colombia's neighbors, Ecuador is perhaps the most vulnerable, least prepared and worst equipped to deal with such developments. =46ive presidents in five years are the best indication of the political instability in this Andean nation of 12.5 million, whose situation is further complicated by dire poverty, the highest inflation in the Western Hemisphere and a military better known for meddling in politics than valor in combat. "If Colombia is going to be another Vietnam, as everyone keeps saying, then Ecuador is going to become the Cambodia of this war," Maximo Abad Jaramillo, the mayor here, warned. "We are not ready for this war, we don't want to be a part of it, but we are being dragged into the conflict against our will." In December alone, the local police say, 20 people were killed here, 15 of them in clashes among Colombians and 5 who died when a bomb exploded in an attack on an oil pipeline that runs from Lago Agrio to the Pacific and is the main source of Ecuador's export earnings. In the most spectacular of the slayings, a Colombian paramilitary trooper was shot dead in front of police headquarters by two men on a motorcycle. Almost since its founding, Lago Agrio has been a service center for the oil industry, whose employees have flocked to the bars, discotheques, pool halls, karaoke parlors, cabarets and brothels that have proliferated here. But those are now filled not with roustabouts but with wary young men whose Colombian accents, lean bodies, close-cropped hair and expensive military-style boots suggest that they are fighters on furlough. Lago Agrio, whose name means sour lake in Spanish, also boasts an unusual number of medical clinics and doctors' and dentists' offices for a town with only 25,000 residents. Combatants from both sides are often brought here from Colombia for treatment, along with coca plantation workers who have been made ill by the noxious chemicals used to process their crop into cocaine. In an effort to minimize conflicts between guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and paramilitary fighters, some of the brothels and various other establishments catering to guerrillas are marked with the image of Che Guevara superimposed on a red star. But residents say conditions have deteriorated sharply as a result of Plan Colombia, the anti-drug campaign devised by Colombia and the United States. "With all the violence, threats and even kidnappings, our situation has become really grave in the past four or five months," said Amparo de Cordova, president of Fuerzas Vivas, a coalition of neighborhood and professional groups here. "The Colombians have always brought their quarrels over here with them, but now their violence is political and subversive, and our authorities seem powerless to stop it." Taking advantage of the growing tensions, Colombians from outside the border zone are buying up ranches and farms in the area from Ecuadoreans who fear the worst and are eager to leave. In some instances the outsiders offer to pay above the market value for properties, but in other cases, recently displaced landowners say, they have not hesitated to threaten violence to gain control of especially desirable pieces of property. "I just hope to God that they aren't planning on growing coca on those farms as a substitute for the plantations that are going to be fumigated over on the other side," said Fernando Lucas, president of the local chamber of commerce. "Because the moment that happens, we are going to have a real disaster on our hands here." Ecuadorean officials say they have uncovered and destroyed several small cocaine processing labs in the Amazon region in recent months. Local peasants have crossed the border in recent years to work in the cocaine business, drawn by salaries that are up to five times the minimum wage paid here, and are now returning with the drug know-how they have acquired in Colombia. The United States authorized $1.3 billion in emergency aid last year to strengthen Colombia's ability to fight drug trafficking. Anticipating some spillover from Colombia to Ecuador, the United States has designated $40 million for expenditure here in the next two years, mostly for "social infrastructure" projects, according to the American Embassy in Quito=2E Ecuador's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, recently visited Washington to plead for an aid package that could total $300 million. Unlike Venezuela and Brazil, the Ecuadorean government has closely aligned itself with the anti-drug offensive through such measures as setting up an American drug surveillance base in the coastal city of Manta, which FARC leaders have said they consider "a declaration of war." But Ecuador's own security forces appear eager to avoid conflict and largely unable to defend themselves. "You go to the army, and they tell you they don't have the manpower, the vehicles or even the gasoline" to prevent Colombian incursions across the border," a civic leader here complained. "You go to the police, and they show you their guns and tell you that they don't even have bullets. We have been left unprotected here." Nor is the Ecuadorean or American government providing help in dealing with a growing refugee problem. As of Dec. 31, nearly 2,100 Colombians had fled the fighting just across the border and registered with the Roman Catholic Church in Lago Agrio, which is aiding the evacuees in conjunction with a newly opened office of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. "We've been averaging about 100 people a week since September," said the Rev=2E Edgar Pinos, the church's refugee coordinator here, "but we are worried, because we expect the anti-drug campaign to start in earnest this month. In the event of a massive flow, we are going to need more help with food and lodging, because our capacity is limited." To complicate things further, several of the mayors along the border, including the one in Lago Agrio, are leftists who, if not openly supporting the FARC, are sympathetic to its program. "We cannot argue that any group or person has a right to kill," Mr. Abad said. "But the struggle for equality and the defense of justice is a good thing." Just before Christmas, President Gustavo Noboa, who took office a year ago after a military coup, said he might be forced to declare a state of emergency in the border region if attacks on the oil pipeline and other installations continued. Under the Ecuadorean Constitution, that would allow him to replace the civilian governors of border provinces with military officers, as has been suggested, and suspend some civil liberties. "God forbid that terrorism comes to Ecuador," Mr. Noboa warned at a news conference in Quito. "I want to advise you that I am not going to allow the nation to lose its calm and peace. If I have to declare a state of emergency and apply the national security laws, I will." But Mr. Abad warned that such an action "would only add fuel to the fire in this vulnerable zone." The recent surge in the fighting has devastated the economy in this market town. Unable to obtain basic supplies from their usual sources because of skirmishes and roadblocks that have interrupted normal trade routes, the residents of Putumayo Province in Colombia have turned in desperation to merchants here, who are unable to meet the increased demand. As a result, the price of rice and other staples like sugar, cooking oil, salt and beans has skyrocketed and there have also been runs on gasoline and pharmaceuticals. "A 100-pound bag of rice that sold for $16 in August was fetching as much as $38 by December," Mrs. de Cordova complained. At the same time, sales of the products that Colombians have traditionally bought here in normal times have plummeted and credit has dried up. Mr. Lucas, who owns a company that distributes detergents and cosmetics, estimates that his sales have fallen as much as 70 percent in recent months and fears that things are going to become even more unsettled. "For the Colombians this part of Ecuador has always been useful as a rest stop, as a place to treat their sick and wounded, to spend a weekend or to resupply themselves," Mr. Lucas said. "We can only hope that they do not want to turn this into another combat zone and make us targets, because we are not the ones who created this problem. All we want is an end to the bloodshed." - --============_-1233186786==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Source: New York Times January 8, 2001 ECUADOR AFRAID AS A DRUG WAR HEADS ITS WAY By LARRY ROHTER LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador, Jan. 3 - Every country bordering Colombia fears that as the conflict there worsens and United States involvement grows, violence and coca cultivation will spill across the frontier into their territory. But in this dingy Amazon border town, that dreaded scenario has already become a reality. Hardly a day goes by now without right-wing paramilitary fighters and leftist guerrillas, ostensibly here on leave, killing each other on the streets or in bars. Refugees fleeing the intensifying combat in southern Colombia are also showing up and, as if in anticipation of the Washington-backed anti- drug offensive the Colombian government is to begin soon, affluent Colombians with no ties to this area are suddenly buying up land and stocking up on chemicals used to process cocaine. Of all of Colombia's neighbors, Ecuador is perhaps the most vulnerable, least prepared and worst equipped to deal with such developments. =46ive presidents in five years are the best indication of the political instability in this Andean nation of 12.5 million, whose situation is further complicated by dire poverty, the highest inflation in the Western Hemisphere and a military better known for meddling in politics than valor in combat. "If Colombia is going to be another Vietnam, as everyone keeps saying, then Ecuador is going to become the Cambodia of this war," Maximo Abad Jaramillo, the mayor here, warned. "We are not ready for this war, we don't want to be a part of it, but we are being dragged into the conflict against our will." In December alone, the local police say, 20 people were killed here, 15 of them in clashes among Colombians and 5 who died when a bomb exploded in an attack on an oil pipeline that runs from Lago Agrio to the Pacific and is the main source of Ecuador's export earnings. In the most spectacular of the slayings, a Colombian paramilitary trooper was shot dead in front of police headquarters by two men on a motorcycle. Almost since its founding, Lago Agrio has been a service center for the oil industry, whose employees have flocked to the bars, discotheques, pool halls, karaoke parlors, cabarets and brothels that have proliferated here. But those are now filled not with roustabouts but with wary young men whose Colombian accents, lean bodies, close-cropped hair and expensive military-style boots suggest that they are fighters on furlough. Lago Agrio, whose name means sour lake in Spanish, also boasts an unusual number of medical clinics and doctors' and dentists' offices for a town with only 25,000 residents. Combatants from both sides are often brought here from Colombia for treatment, along with coca plantation workers who have been made ill by the noxious chemicals used to process their crop into cocaine. In an effort to minimize conflicts between guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and paramilitary fighters, some of the brothels and various other establishments catering to guerrillas are marked with the image of Che Guevara superimposed on a red star. But residents say conditions have deteriorated sharply as a result of Plan Colombia, the anti-drug campaign devised by Colombia and the United States. "With all the violence, threats and even kidnappings, our situation has become really grave in the past four or five months," said Amparo de Cordova, president of Fuerzas Vivas, a coalition of neighborhood and professional groups here. "The Colombians have always brought their quarrels over here with them, but now their violence is political and subversive, and our authorities seem powerless to stop it." Taking advantage of the growing tensions, Colombians from outside the border zone are buying up ranches and farms in the area from Ecuadoreans who fear the worst and are eager to leave. In some instances the outsiders offer to pay above the market value for properties, but in other cases, recently displaced landowners say, they have not hesitated to threaten violence to gain control of especially desirable pieces of property. "I just hope to God that they aren't planning on growing coca on those farms as a substitute for the plantations that are going to be fumigated over on the other side," said Fernando Lucas, president of the local chamber of commerce. "Because the moment that happens, we are going to have a real disaster on our hands here." Ecuadorean officials say they have uncovered and destroyed several small cocaine processing labs in the Amazon region in recent months. Local peasants have crossed the border in recent years to work in the cocaine business, drawn by salaries that are up to five times the minimum wage paid here, and are now returning with the drug know-how they have acquired in Colombia. The United States authorized $1.3 billion in emergency aid last year to strengthen Colombia's ability to fight drug trafficking. Anticipating some spillover from Colombia to Ecuador, the United States has designated $40 million for expenditure here in the next two years, mostly for "social infrastructure" projects, according to the American Embassy in Quito. Ecuador's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, recently visited Washington to plead for an aid package that could total $300 million. Unlike Venezuela and Brazil, the Ecuadorean government has closely aligned itself with the anti-drug offensive through such measures as setting up an American drug surveillance base in the coastal city of Manta, which FARC leaders have said they consider "a declaration of war." But Ecuador's own security forces appear eager to avoid conflict and largely unable to defend themselves. "You go to the army, and they tell you they don't have the manpower, the vehicles or even the gasoline" to prevent Colombian incursions across the border," a civic leader here complained. "You go to the police, and they show you their guns and tell you that they don't even have bullets. We have been left unprotected here." Nor is the Ecuadorean or American government providing help in dealing with a growing refugee problem. As of Dec. 31, nearly 2,100 Colombians had fled the fighting just across the border and registered with the Roman Catholic Church in Lago Agrio, which is aiding the evacuees in conjunction with a newly opened office of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. "We've been averaging about 100 people a week since September," said the Rev. Edgar Pinos, the church's refugee coordinator here, "but we are worried, because we expect the anti-drug campaign to start in earnest this month. In the event of a massive flow, we are going to need more help with food and lodging, because our capacity is limited." To complicate things further, several of the mayors along the border, including the one in Lago Agrio, are leftists who, if not openly supporting the FARC, are sympathetic to its program. "We cannot argue that any group or person has a right to kill," Mr. Abad said. "But the struggle for equality and the defense of justice is a good thing." Just before Christmas, President Gustavo Noboa, who took office a year ago after a military coup, said he might be forced to declare a state of emergency in the border region if attacks on the oil pipeline and other installations continued. Under the Ecuadorean Constitution, that would allow him to replace the civilian governors of border provinces with military officers, as has been suggested, and suspend some civil liberties. "God forbid that terrorism comes to Ecuador," Mr. Noboa warned at a news conference in Quito. "I want to advise you that I am not going to allow the nation to lose its calm and peace. If I have to declare a state of emergency and apply the national security laws, I will." But Mr. Abad warned that such an action "would only add fuel to the fire in this vulnerable zone." The recent surge in the fighting has devastated the economy in this market town. Unable to obtain basic supplies from their usual sources because of skirmishes and roadblocks that have interrupted normal trade routes, the residents of Putumayo Province in Colombia have turned in desperation to merchants here, who are unable to meet the increased demand. As a result, the price of rice and other staples like sugar, cooking oil, salt and beans has skyrocketed and there have also been runs on gasoline and pharmaceuticals. "A 100-pound bag of rice that sold for $16 in August was fetching as much as $38 by December," Mrs. de Cordova complained. At the same time, sales of the products that Colombians have traditionally bought here in normal times have plummeted and credit has dried up. Mr. Lucas, who owns a company that distributes detergents and cosmetics, estimates that his sales have fallen as much as 70 percent in recent months and fears that things are going to become even more unsettled. "For the Colombians this part of Ecuador has always been useful as a rest stop, as a place to treat their sick and wounded, to spend a weekend or to resupply themselves," Mr. Lucas said. "We can only hope that they do not want to turn this into another combat zone and make us targets, because we are not the ones who created this problem. All we want is an end to the bloodshed." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D