Pubdate: Sat, 30 Jul 2005
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2005 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Andrew Selsky, The Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Plan+Colombia (Plan Colombia)

CITY STRANGLES AS CHAOS REIGNS

Rebels Declare Southern State No-Drive Zone

PUERTO ASIS (AP) -No gasoline. No electricity. No running water. This 
ramshackle city has been living in fear and deprivation since Colombian 
rebels declared the southern state of Putumayo a no-drive zone just over a 
week ago and began blowing up bridges, electrical towers and oil production 
facilities.

With shortages worsening in the region, a Colombian air force C-130 ferried 
in 12 tons of food Thursday and then flew out at night carrying 82 
civilians who had been stranded in Puerto Asis, the state's main city.

"We are enduring uncertainty," Julio Rodriguez said, standing in a crowd of 
locals watching soldiers unload sacks of rice, sugar and other staples from 
the Hercules cargo plane.

"We don't know what's going to happen," he said. "For example, we hear the 
outlawed groups may be surrounding the town. During the night we hear 
explosions."

U.S. officials who began aerial fumigation of cocaine-producing crops in 
this isolated state almost five years ago believed then that the "outlawed 
groups" that control cocaine production, leftist rebels and their 
right-wing paramilitary foes, would be long gone by now. The theory was 
that with the coca fields killed by herbicide, the gunmen would leave.

When the fumigation began in 2000, some 163,000 acres of coca flourished in 
Putumayo, according to the United Nations. By the end of last year, only 
10,838 acres remained.

But some of the peasant farmers who make a living growing coca have 
doggedly replanted when the spray planes leave. And the nine-day-old 
offensive shows the rebels are far from gone. Last month, they killed 22 
soldiers in an attack on a remote Putumayo outpost.

The camouflage-clad fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 
have burned at least two buses and two trucks that violated the travel ban. 
A dozen civilians traveling in a bus were wounded in a crossfire between 
troops and rebels. On Wednesday, rebels killed two soldiers and wounded 
four in a convoy bringing reinforcements from a neighboring state.

Army commanders say the guerrilla offensive is aimed at forcing the 
military to divert its already stretched forces from attacking rebel camps 
and other hard targets in this Andean nation.

Putumayo is paralyzed. The few commercial flights on small planes out of 
Puerto Asis are booked solid. Motorists are afraid to drive on rural roads. 
Even though numerous oil wells dot the state and a pipeline runs through 
it, gasoline stations are mostly dry.

"Up to the moment, it's chaotic," said Victor Alfonso Montenegro, general 
manager of Contramayo Ltd., a regional bus company.

He said the travel ban was in effect indefinitely for all of Putumayo's 
highways, most of them dirt roads that cut through jungle and withered coca 
plantations.

The United Nations said Friday it was "extremely concerned" by the state's 
shortages of food and other essentials.

"We urge all parties to allow persons in the combat zones to move to safer 
areas and to permit humanitarian workers to reach people in need of 
assistance," Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner 
for Refugees, said in Geneva.

Puerto Asis Mayor Luis Fernando Gaviria told The Associated Press that much 
of the food brought by the C-130 would be taken by military helicopters to 
Orito and other towns where food is scarce.

For now, food shortages have not yet hit Puerto Asis' 28,000 residents, 
though some supermarkets are short of fresh vegetables. But the municipal 
water system shut down when the electricity went out, and some people are 
using wells to get water.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom