Pubdate: Sat, 30 Jul 2005
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Andrew Selsky, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/colombia.htm (Colombia)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/plan+colombia

FARC BLOCKADE PARALYZES STATE

The Colombian Air Force Airlifted In Food Amid The FARC Rebels'
Blockade In The Strife-Torn State Of Putumayo, Where A Lack Of Supplies
Is Growing Critical

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - No gasoline. No electricity. No running water.
For more than a week, residents of this ramshackle city have been
living in fear and deprivation since rebels declared the state of
Putumayo in southern Colombia a no-drive zone and began blowing up
bridges, electrical towers and oil production facilities.

As the crisis deepened, a Colombian Air Force C-130 on Thursday
airlifted out 82 stranded civilians from Puerto Asis -- Putumayo's
main city -- after ferrying in 12 tons of food.

''We are enduring uncertainty,'' Julio Rodriguez said as he joined
locals crowding the airport gate to watch soldiers unload sacks of
rice, sugar and other staples from the yawning belly of the Hercules
cargo plane. ``We don't know what's going to happen. For example, we
hear the outlawed groups may be surrounding the town. During the night
we hear explosions.''

U.S. officials who launched a massive aerial fumigation of cocaine-
producing crops in this isolated state almost five years ago believed
then that the ''outlawed groups'' -- the leftist rebels and their
right-wing paramilitary foes who control cocaine production in
Colombia -- would be gone from Putumayo by now. The theory was that
with the thousands of acres of coca having been destroyed, the
insurgent gunmen would leave.

When the fumigation began in 2000, 163,140.36 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
been doggedly replanting their crops after 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, or FARC, have burned at least two buses and two trucks that
violated their travel ban. A dozen civilians traveling in a bus were
wounded in a crossfire between army troops and rebels. On Wednesday,
rebels killed two soldiers and wounded four as they traveled in a
convoy from a neighboring state as reinforcements.

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

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. Most gasoline stations are dry.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin