NO WAY OUT

A death sentence hangs over this small village of dirt streets and wooden
shacks along the banks of the Rio de Oro. The inhabitants know the
executioners may arrive at any moment.

``When they come, it is always unexpected,'' said resident Fredy Quintero,
23. ``They want to destroy the village, finish it off.'' ``They'' are the
right-wing paramilitary forces vying for control of the Catatumbo River
valley, which is governed by the leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces (FARC).

For the past 16 months, these death squads have attacked civilians
suspected of aiding the guerrillas in the remote jungle area in
northeastern Colombia that borders neighboring Venezuela. As a result,
thousands have braved rough terrain to stream across the border.

The exodus underscores how the effects of Colombia's worsening 35-year-old
civil war have begun to spill into neighboring countries, despite renewed
efforts to start the peace process.

In response, Venezuelan authorities have continually denied the refugees
asylum, according to reports from human rights groups and testimony of the
victims. It is a policy that has led to the deaths of at least 100
deportees at the hands of paramilitaries, according to FARC commanders, who
have been the de facto government in the region for years. Critics say
Venezuela is violating its obligations as a signatory to the U.N. Refugee
Protocol of 1967 by refusing asylum to those who have a ``well-founded fear
of persecution.'' Late last month, Quintero and two of his brothers were
chatting with La Pista store-owner Henry Hernandez when paracos -- a
disrespectful term with no particular meaning used by their opponents
- --shot Hernandez three times in the head.

They also fired at the Quinteros as they sprinted for the safety of the Rio
de Oro. The three young men eventually reached the Venezuelan side. ``Those
bullet holes you see are from the shots fired at us,'' Quintero said,
pointing to a shack riddled with gunfire. ``It is a miracle they didn't
kill us.'' When the shooting stopped, the paramilitaries, who most
villagers say are typically soldiers dressed in civilian garb, rounded up
the several hundred remaining La Pista residents -- last year there were
some 1,000 inhabitants -- and gave them an ultimatum.

``They warned us that the next time they came and found stores open for
business, the same thing would happen to us as to the man they had just
killed,'' said Maria Teresa Montagu, a 40-year-old store owner. When the
paramilitaries left, Montagu closed her looted store, gathered up her eight
children and headed for Venezuela along with 500 others.

It was the second time she had crossed the river.

Last year, Montagu survived a massacre by paramilitaries in the nearby town
of La Gabarra. Inside Venezuela, she and others were interviewed by
representatives of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
Provea, a Caracas-based human rights group.

``What we want is a defense of the principle of asylum,'' said Merida
Morales, UNHCR regional representative in Venezuela. ``We want the
government to apply a procedure of case-by-case analysis.'' Officials of
both groups found the refugees fearful for their safety and eager to
receive protection from Venezuela. But even though President Hugo Chavez
has called Catatumbo a ``mini Kosovo,'' his government has publicly
disagreed with the UNHCR that the Colombians should be designated as
refugees. Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel has called them ``displaced
people in transit'' -- a term that does not exist in international law.
Interior Minister Luis Alfonso Davila has described the UNHCR's description
of the Colombians as refugees as an attempt ``to justify its presence in
the country.'' Last year, when nearly 4,000 Colombians from Catatumbo fled
across the border, Venezuelan officials said the refugees later returned
voluntarily after Colombia agreed to provide them with protection. But a
Provea report says La Pista refugees were ``handed over to the (Colombian)
authorities without any guarantee for their lives and physical integrity.''
Groups such as Provea argue that since many refugees say the Colombian army
has done nothing to protect them, and the armed forces have even assisted
the paramilitaries' offensive, they will not be safe if they return.
Indeed, in recent months the paramilitaries have terrorized the region,
even using machetes to cut their victims into pieces. ``Chango Quintero
used to live in that shack,'' said Aldemar Pinilla, a 25-year-old La Pista
farmer. ``They chopped him up and threw the pieces in the river.

His head floated down to the military base on the Venezuelan side.'' When
store owner Montagu recently fled to the other side, she encountered the
Venezuelan army, whose officers told her to return ``because of a law that
says no Colombians are allowed''(in Venezuela), she said. Now back in La
Pista, she is trying to sell what she can to get out, but she is running
out of options. ``What can I do?'' she asked. ``The paracos kick me out and
the (Venezuelan) soldiers send me back. I have nowhere to go.'' Martin
Gottwald of the UNHCR said, ``The concept of voluntary repatriation implies
that there are options.

On the border, people are often not told that the concept of asylum
exists.'' At present, all is calm in La Pista after the recent return of
FARC forces. Local FARC Commander Ruben Zamora says that since President
Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela last year, the treatment of
Colombians has improved. He said harassment by Venezuelan troops has waned,
and refugees are now housed and fed before being loaded onto buses for the
short ride home. Zamora attributes reports of hostility toward refugees to
junior officers rather than government policy, and he blames the Colombian
government for the deaths of 600 civilians in the Catatumbo region since
May of last year. Zamora predicts that the situation will deteriorate with
the implementation of the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, a U.S.-sponsored
initiative to destroy the cocaine industry.

He argues that although the initial target of the plan is the country's
main coca-growing area along the southern border with Ecuador and Peru, the
campaign is bound to reach Catatumbo, where the rebels charge taxes on each
pound of harvested coca leaf. ``If Plan Colombia is implemented, up to
60,000 refugees could be heading for Venezuela,'' from the region alone, he
said.