COKE AND GUNPOWDER

Plan Colombia Might Export Wars To Neighbours

BOGOTA -- "If I were Colombia's neighbour, I would be very worried about
the likely transit of its problems to my country."

If this is what the U.S. secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld,
foreshadowed last month for Venezuela, Panama, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, it
is not hard to imagine why these governments raised the roof when guerrilla
and paramilitary activity started spreading through the region.

The ghost feared by countries that share a boundary with the biggest drug
supplier in the world is called Plan Colombia, which analysts expect will
intensify the bloody war in which more than 3,000 people die every year.

With this omen, and the multilateral threat by the guerrillas, the
paramilitary militias and the armed forces to fight each other until they
achieve victory, countries surrounding Colombia have militarized their borders.

The so-called Plan Colombia is a $7.5-billion strategy designed by
President Andres Pastrana to eradicate drug-trafficking from the country,
to sign a peace accord with the main guerrilla groups and to relaunch the
economy. It has only recently been put into effect, although the shock
waves are already being felt.

Fumigation Displacements

Neighbouring countries are worried the war will expand beyond Colombia's
borders and that the thousands of people displaced by war and coca
fumigations will seek refuge in their territories.

Ecuador, which shares a border of 560 kilometres with Colombia, and
Venezuela, with 2,200 kilometres of frontier, had been the hardest hit
until now - receiving an estimated 3,000 people in the past year alone.
What worries them most, however, is the increasing signs of guerrilla and
paramilitary presence in their countries.

Last year, Ecuador's president of Congress, Juan Jose Pons, said: "Our
country cannot become a new Cambodia or a new Laos, in case Colombia's war
escalates into a Vietnam."

In the latest surge of violence blamed on Colombia's war, one U.S. citizen
died after being kidnapped by an unknown group in Ecuador last October with
five other Americans, two French, one Chilean and one Argentinean.

Although the authorities in Ecuador, roughly the size of Italy, blame
common delinquents for the kidnapping, many have ventured to accuse the
Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia (a well-armed and positioned
guerrilla group of more than 17,000 fighters known by its Spanish
abbreviation, FARC) of capturing the oil workers.

Also, on Jan. 11, the Ecuadoran army reported two guerrillas were killed on
their soil when FARC encountered its main enemy, paramilitary forces of the
United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (known as AUC).

A few days later, the army of this politically unstable country, which has
had four presidents in four years, reported having dismantled a military
camp presumably used by the FARC.

Ecuador's fear of being dragged into Colombia's war increased when the
guerrilla group threatened its government: "Ecuador must maintain a strict
neutrality toward the Colombian conflict and we encourage it not to
participate with the Plan Colombia."

Nonetheless, Ecuador has been the only Colombian neighbour to fully support
the anti-narco strategy, backed by the $ 1.3-billion military aid of the U.S.

The main concern of Ecuadorans who do not want to see their country become
a target of FARC is the Manta military base used by American forces to
co-ordinate coca eradication in Colombia. The guerrilla group says the base
is used for undercover military operations against them, which is why they
have threatened to declare it a military objective if the United States
forces continue to use it.

Although Colombian insurgents have assured neighbouring countries they will
not interfere or attack outside Colombia's borders, Ecuadoran authorities
fear infiltration has begun already. Even the Catholic Church has weighed
in: "We have no doubt that there is some kind of infiltration of Colombian
guerrillas in Ecuador, and there is no doubt that some Ecuadorans might
favour terrorist activity in our country, out of fear or for sympathy with
the FARC."

The appearance of a new guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Ecuador (FARE), is believed to be another symptom. The coincidence in their
names is not all they share. FARE is believed to have 400 well-trained
fighters, armed, trained and logistically supported by FARC. It is blamed
for recent attacks on oil pipelines, a common terrorist objective of
Colombian guerrillas.

Guerrilla and paramilitary warfare has also been intense in Venezuela.
Kidnappings, murders, attacks and even massacres have occurred with
regularity in the past couple of years. Although the Venezuelan government
has promised to crack down on guerrillas in their territory, the truth is
at least 40 cattle farmers have been kidnapped in the past year, and many
more have to pay to avoid being targeted.

Cattle growers have reacted by creating their own paramilitary group. Otto
Ramirez, their spokesman, confirmed this month: "We are arming ourselves
because we cannot permit guerrillas to finish us, while the Venezuelan
state does not do anything about it."

'Violence Generators'

Once again, FARC "asked" Venezuelans not to create the so-called
"self-defence" militias. Through a letter to the cattle growers sent by
"Ruben Zamora," the commander of a FARC subgroup, 33 Front, the guerrillas
said: "We have been singled out to be violence generators on the border,
when in fact we are contributing to the generation of a peaceful atmosphere
in the region."

Although it is unclear what type of activity Colombian guerrillas actually
carry out, Venezuelan cattle growers have blamed the insurgency of
creating, arming and training two new guerrilla groups as an armed
extension to avoid being signaled directly.

Until now, insurgent activity in the other border countries like Peru and
Panama has been mainly related to drug- and arms-trafficking activity, with
a few sporadic attacks on border towns in the past few years. Brazil says
it only fears that the drug activity will increase in its territory once
Plan Colombia is put fully into effect.