SOUTHERN COLOMBIA BROUGHT TO A STANDSTILL BY FIGHTING

BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 18 - Fierce fighting in southern Colombia has
halted commerce and made hundreds of people seek refuge in Ecuador and
elsewhere in Colombia, officials said today.

Guerrillas of the largest rebel organization here, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, are controlling roads throughout the area.
As a result, isolated towns and hamlets have seen supplies of food,
gasoline and drinking water dwindle.

More than 1,000 people have left their houses this month, said Gloria
Echeverry, a spokeswoman for the Network of Social Solidarity, a
government agency that is shipping food to the region.

Of the refugees, 225 have reportedly crossed the San Miguel and
Putumayo Rivers into Ecuador, fleeing the chaos that has gripped the
Putumayo Province since heavy fighting began last month. Several
hundred Ecuadoreans who work in Putumayo are reportedly stranded in
its capital, Mocoa.

The people who remain are said to subsist on whatever food and water
they had stored since roadblocks all but ended the deliveries.

"Now the people are hungry," said Francisco Segura, director of the
Association of Municipalities of Putumayo, a nongovernment group that
has been in contact with elected officials. "They are not allowing any
food in or out through any route, not through Ecuador or anywhere
else. What the government is doing is not much. They are helping
people in the cities. But what about the people in the little
communities and farms?"

The confrontations between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing
paramilitary forces are in a region the size of New Hampshire, an area
of steamy jungles and coca fields where an ambitious American-backed
effort at eradicating 135,000 acres of coca fields is widely expected
to go into high gear by early next year. Two counternarcotics
battalions trained by American soldiers are beginning operations.

The training, along with helicopters and other assistance to help them
operate, is part of $1.3 billion in United States aid that is meant to
curtail the northbound flow of cocaine.

Critics have said the program, which is top-heavy with military
spending, will lead to increased fighting and displaced farmers.

The rebel group, known as FARC, has long been involved in the cocaine
trade in the region, where half the Colombian coca is grown, American
officials say. The paramilitary groups, privately financed groups that
human rights workers say have often operated with tacit support from
elements of the military, have in recent weeks engaged the guerrillas
for control of the lucrative business.

One result, Colombian officials say, has been a series of skirmishes
that has left scores of guerrillas, paramilitaries and farmers dead.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry here, Raul Gutierrez, said: "In
these zones, 50 percent of Colombian coca is produced. And now there
is a dispute between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas for the
territory, for the business."

Mr. Gutierrez said the government had not foreseen "the blockade and
the isolation of the people and, much less, that the blockade would
stop the flow of food."

The government has flown 120 tons of rice, milk, beans, cooking oil
and other food items to the region. A 100- ton shipment is to be sent
beginning on Thursday.

Mr. Gutierrez said, "We have only gotten the food to the big towns."