MAYOR KILLED IN SOUTH COLOMBIA

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia--A mayor here in Colombia's major coca-growing
province was killed Wednesday, authorities said, as a Marxist rebel protest
against U.S.-backed drug crop eradication entered its third month.

Two men on a motorcycle--a common assassination team in Colombia--killed
Carlos Julio Rosas, the authorities said. Rosas was the mayor of Orito, a
town in the southern province of Putumayo, which is under siege by
insurgents opposed to the fumigation of coca fields.

Rosas' death followed an attempt to assassinate the mayor of Sibundoy, in
the same province, and came two weeks after a bomb exploded a block from
the police station here in nearby Puerto Asis, killing two civilians and
injuring 16 other people, including several police officers, according to
authorities.

Since late September, roads into the province have been blocked by Marxist
guerrillas protesting "the push into the south"--the military component of
Plan Colombia, this nation's anti-drug initiative.

For the first month, the national government ignored the siege, Putumayo
Gov. Jorge Devia said in an interview earlier this month. But after
citizens began organizing a delegation to talk to guerrilla representatives
to the country's now-suspended peace talks, officials took action.

Military authorities took control of the province earlier this month,
police said, and have organized and escorted caravans of supply trucks that
have broken the rebel blockade.

Because no group has claimed responsibility for either Rosas' killing or
the bombing here, it wasn't clear whether the incidents were a response to
the breaking of the blockade. "These events frustrate the majority of
Colombians who long for a peaceful nation," a national government statement
lamented.

As the province that grows an estimated two-thirds of the coca in Colombia,
the world's major cocaine producer, Putumayo has become the focus of the
guerrilla protest against the anti-drug plan. The rebels are especially
opposed to the $1.3 billion in U.S. aid, which will be used mainly for
military training and hardware to fumigate opium poppies and coca.

The province is already a major target of the new military anti-narcotics
base at Tres Esquinas, Colombian authorities have said, and anti-drug
activity is slated to increase as more U.S. funds arrive. The rebels and
right-wing private armies that have been fighting for control of Putumayo's
coca fields for the past two years are both hostile to the eradication
project, according to military authorities.

But the roads have been blocked only by four fronts of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest guerrilla group, known by
the initials FARC.

The siege contrasts with the rebels' largely successful effort four years
ago to prevent aerial spraying in this part of Colombia. Then, the
guerrillas organized marches of thousands of coca farmers to protest the
proposed spraying.

The current protest, U.S. and Colombian officials claim, is directed
against the civilian population.

"This whole thing is unwinding in a bizarre fashion," U.S. anti-drug czar
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said in a telephone interview on a recent trip to
Bogota, the capital. "I've never seen an organization with less political
sense than the FARC demonstrates."

Gov. Devia said the blockade has made the FARC increasingly unpopular. "The
civilian population is becoming tired of the FARC yoke," he said.

When the supply trucks entered Puerto Asis escorted by the Colombian army,
he said, it was met by motor scooters honking their horns in celebration
and residents who lined the street to shout, "Long live the army," in this
town that is traditionally guerrilla-controlled.

In recent weeks, posters have appeared here featuring a map of Putumayo--a
long, thin province that stretches along Colombia's border with Ecuador and
Peru. A chain is locked firmly around the map.

"Putumayo demands freedom," the simple Spanish legend demands. No one
admits to knowing who put them up on power poles and walls of stores, but
no one has taken them down, either. Similarly, four-wheel-drive vehicles
spray-painted with anti-FARC slogans have begun cruising through town in
what residents consider a sign of the presence of the right-wing private
armies.

Despite the success of the military-escorted caravans, prices for staples
such as rice remain at double or triple their usual level. Gasoline is $6 a
gallon from clandestine sellers; local gas pumps are empty.