COLOMBIAN COCA-GROWING AREA SHAKEN BY A GUERRILLA BLOCKADE

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia -- When an army convoy finally delivered 325 tons of
desperately needed food to this guerrilla-blockaded Amazon town, thousands
of residents packed the dusty streets to cheer.

Grudgingly. ``It took them more than 50 days to get here,'' seamstress
Jannette Gomez complained even as she applauded the 600 soldiers who
guarded the convoy. ``If this is what it's going to be like, I don't want
Plan Colombia.'' What began as a rebel ban on all road traffic in the
southern state of Putumayo has erupted into a harsh test for Colombia's
military and an ominous preview of a U.S.-backed offensive against coca
fields due to start here in January. In effect, the blockade declared Sept.
24 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, stole a march on
Plan Colombia, sparking a storm of food shortages, refugees and bloodshed
before the army was ready for it. ``There's a total state of desperation,''
acknowledged Gen. Mario Montoya, the region's top commander. ``But we are
getting in reinforcements every day, and our aim is to retake control of
Putumayo.'' FARC rebels have torched 65 vehicles and killed eight drivers
- -- burning two alive -- for violating the blockade.

The action has paralyzed commercial traffic in an area of 350,000 people
that is one-third the size of Florida.

Troubles Mount

Electricity has been cut off for a month; this town of 38,000 is virtually
empty of cars because gasoline has soared from $1.75 to $7.50 a gallon; and
hospital officials report rising cases of diarrhea and hepatitis because of
a shortage of water-treatment chemicals. White flags fly from homes,
businesses and motorcycles amid rumors of a possible FARC attack on the
town, and police brought in a 300-man riot control unit over the weekend,
fearing an outbreak of looting. A military airlift has delivered 600 tons
of food to the region, but thousands of families are eating at communal
kitchens supplied by the airlift, and police are making do with
U.S.-supplied military rations. FARMERS' EXODUS About 1,000 farm families
have fled to towns such as Puerto Asis, and an estimated 500 people have
hitched rides aboard the departing military airplanes to escape the crisis.
Coca processing has almost stopped because of the shortage of both
chemicals and field hands needed to turn coca leaves into coca paste and
later cocaine, leaving thousands of families without an income, coca
growers say. ``There is not one peso in town,'' restaurant owner Araceli
Bustamante said. ``Farmers are walking in and offering barter -- a chicken
for rice, a pig for a gallon of gasoline.

But how many pigs can one accept?''

Government Lament

``The FARC has kidnapped the 350,000 people of Putumayo,'' Vice President
Gustavo Bell Lemus complained last week. ``They are holding these people
hostage because they want us to stop Plan Colombia.'' Actually, the initial
reason behind the FARC blockade was far more sordid -- a fight for control
of the heart of hearts of Colombia's cocaine industry, which now exports 90
percent of the world's cocaine. Nearly half of Colombia's coca fields lie
in Putumayo, and about half of the state's total -- 64,220 acres -- lies in
the Guamues Valley, an area 28 miles west of Puerto Asis that the FARC has
dominated since the 1980s. The blockade has made Putumayo residents angry
at both the guerrillas, for enforcing it, and the government and the
military, for their slow reactions.

``People are really p----d off,'' a FARC rebel manning a roadblock reported
to superiors in a radio conversation Saturday monitored by security forces.
Came the reply: ``Anyone who rebels, who protests, take their cars, their
bags, everything, and tell them to get out and never come back.'' Manuel
Alzate, the mayor of Puerto Asis, has strong views about what he sees as
the government's failure to overcome the blockade. ``It is the FARC that is
imposing the blockade, but it is the government's responsibility to protect
and help the people, and the government is doing absolutely nothing,'' he said.

Slow Journey

The army convoy that brought 18 trucks loaded with food on Saturday, the
first land caravan to reach this town since the blockade started, took four
days to cover its 125-mile trip. Yet FARC rebels remain just a two-minute
boat ride from Puerto Asis, armed and in uniform as they play pool and chat
up the girls in Puerto Vega, a hamlet with a dozen one-room shops and
houses across the Putumayo River. Montoya, the regional army commander,
dismisses the FARC's presence in Puerto Vega as unimportant. The army, he
says, is in the midst of a major troop buildup designed to ``retake control
of Putumayo and drive these thugs out.'' His forces doubled from 2,000 to
4,000 since Sept. 24, and he received 1,500 more troops this weekend, most
from special counterguerrilla units, to launch an offensive against the
estimated 1,200 FARC rebels in the region. Army officers say the roads are
now secured. ``But put that in quotation marks,'' said Col. Diaz of the
24th Brigade, ``because with the number of men we have, we would wear
ourselves out if we tried to control all the roads all the time.''

Difficult Task

Even senior commanders admit that Colombia's 146,000-member military is
simply too small to defeat an estimated 15,000 FARC rebels, about 5,000
from the National Liberation Army, known as ELN, and about 5,000 members of
paramilitary forces. ``It is scientifically proven that if you want to win
a guerrilla war, you need a 10-1 ratio over the guerrillas,'' Montoya said.
``You might need fewer men if you have better quality and technology, but
we would still need more than what we have if we want to win.'' Still,
Montoya remains hopeful. ``You know how in the movies the good guys are
losing until the last five minutes?'' he said in an interview. ``Well, in
the end we will win, because we are the good guys.''