CRITIC OF U.S.-BACKED DRUG WAR AMBUSHED; BODYGUARD WOUNDED

A prominent critic of the U.S.-backed war on drugs in Colombia said Monday
he narrowly survived an ambush that wounded his bodyguard.

Manuel Alzate, mayor of the town of Puerto Asis, said he didn't know who
was behind the attack Sunday in the heart of southern Colombia's cocaine
producing region.

''I don't have any idea ... because I have never been threatened by any
group,'' Alzate said by telephone from Puerto Asis, 320 miles (515
kilometers) southwest of Bogota.

Puerto Asis is a major town in southern Putumayo province, where
U.S.-trained army troops have begun operations to eradicate coca crops
which produce most of the world's cocaine. The coca fields are guarded and
''taxed'' by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary gunmen.

The region has become increasingly dangerous as rival groups fight for
control of the coca fields and the millions of dollars in revenue they
bring. Only six weeks earlier, gunmen shot and killed the mayor of the
nearby town of Orito.

Alzate said he was in the front passenger seat when two young men with
pistols ''opened fire and hit a rear door of the pickup, the rear of the
pickup and blew out the back window.'' The mayor's two bodyguards, one of
whom was wounded in the right arm, returned fire with automatic rifles as
the mayor's party sped past the ambush site, he said.

Alzate has been attempting to blunt the U.S.-backed military offensive
against coca fields by having peasant coca farmers commit themselves to
eradicating their drug crops themselves in exchange for government aid. By
doing so, they could keep from having the fields wiped out by aerial
fumigation after they're seized by Colombian army troops.

The dlrs 1.3 billion U.S. aid package to Colombia includes dozens of combat
helicopters plus U.S. special forces training for 3,000 Colombian army
troops given the task of driving the armed groups from the coca fields.
Critics say the anti-drug offensive, part of President Andres Pastrana's
Plan Colombia, will create a wave of refugees and intensify Colombia's
36-year war.

''This is not a plan for peace. It is a plan for war,'' Alzate has said.