COLOMBIA'S WAR INFECTS ECUADOR'S BORDER TOWNS

Rebels, Traffickers, Refugees Pour In

Pioneros del Oriente, Ecuador -- Guerrillas and drug traffickers from
Colombia have long crossed into Ecuador's frontier jungle for time off and
to buy guns or drug-processing chemicals. But as the Colombian government,
backed by a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package, prepares an offensive against
the traffickers and their allies, Colombia's civil war is seeping into
neighboring countries, and things here have suddenly taken a violent turn.

This remote area now lives by the law of the gun. Residents say about 15
armed Colombians took over three farmhouses in August. Pushed across the
border by escalating clashes among leftist guerrillas, right-wing
paramilitary forces and the army in Colombia's southern Putumayo state, the
newcomers drove Ecuadoran farmers from their land, threatening them with
``revenge, Colombian-style'' if they refused to get out of the way.

The three-way conflict in Putumayo, which borders both Ecuador and Peru,
has stepped up in the past week, spurring greater refugee flows. There have
been unconfirmed reports of high casualties, and Putumayo's food supplies
are drying up as rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, threatened to destroy vehicles that venture onto the highways.

The state is Colombia's largest producer of coca plants, the raw material
for cocaine, with an estimated 140,000 acres cultivated.

Ecuadoran soldiers have uncovered and destroyed four small
cocaine-processing labs on this side of the border in the past six months.
Fighters from Colombia's right-wing militia groups have been arrested here
for running extortion rings. Another rebel group, the National Liberation
Army (ELN), also has also increased activity on the Ecuadoran side, police
officials say.

``We've always had problems in these parts, but never like this,'' said
Galo Murillo, a 37-year-old coffee grower who called a town meeting to
discuss the swelling tide of violence in this poor village 150 miles east
of Quito and four miles from the border.

On the road that leads here, police say, the FARC ambushed three Ecuadoran
merchants in August in a business dispute, then stripped and buried their
tractor-trailer truck after killing them.

As the United States has pushed the Colombian government's Plan Colombia as
essential to the war on drugs, Latin American countries have criticized its
potential for making Colombia's conflict regional.

In Venezuela, the United Nations estimates that more than 500 Colombians
are seeking refuge from violence in their homeland, while Panamanian
authorities last month uncovered a smuggling ring channeling arms to the
FARC. In Brazil, the armed forces last week launched Operation Cobra, a $10
million campaign to reinforce the border with Colombia.

In Lago Agrio, local authorities reported an alarming increase in
kidnappings and extortion. And officials fear more trouble because Ecuador
has agreed to let the United States set up a new drug surveillance
operation at a base in the port city of Manta, an act FARC leaders have
described as a ``declaration of war.''

Meanwhile, five camps for up to 5,000 refugees are being planned near the
600-mile-long border. Officials said refugees could be a serious burden in
this economically troubled country of 12 million. Some fear the encampments
could be used as rear bases for guerrillas.

As part of Plan Colombia, Ecuador is to receive $20 million, but anxious
officials contend that is not enough. They are calling for assistance for
economic development along the border, where many of the largest cities
have elected Marxist mayors who support the philosophy, if not the tactics,
of the FARC.

There has been an uneasy truce between the Colombians -- the paramilitaries
and the rebels -- and Ecuadoran authorities, largely because of border
commerce, but also because the FARC does not appear to be looking for a
two-front war. Also, the Ecuadoran military is not interested in, nor
equipped for, a fight with the better-armed guerrillas. Ecuador's main oil
pipeline -- its largest source of foreign revenue -- is an easy target,
being just a 20-minute drive from the border.