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."