BATTLE BREWS OVER PLAN COLOMBIA

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - Violence is not new to Puerto Asis, a town of
45,000 where rightist paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas fight
for control of the surrounding drug-growing area. But fear and uncertainty
grip the city these days as the Colombian government, with $1.3 billion in
U.S. funding, prepares an offensive to reestablish government control and
wipe out the drug-producing plantations here in province of Putumayo.

As part of the government's $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, the United States
is sending intelligence equipment and 60 helicopters to security forces
here and is training troops to retake this forgotten region 350 miles
southwest of Bogota and eradicate an estimated 120,000 acres of coca, the
raw material of cocaine.

President Andres Pastrana's government has portrayed Plan Colombia as a
strategy for peace that will include social and economic programs for small
farmers so they can turn away from growing coca. But in Puerto Asis, people
have heard only of plans to beef up the military, and they expect police to
start spraying chemicals on their fields, their livestock and on them, too.

"When they take this coca away from us, the war is really going to start,"
said one elderly farmer as he walked through the acre of coca that he says
supports his five children. "I may be a little bit older, but I'll grab my
rifle and defend myself and even kill if I have to."

At the behest of the country's largest guerrilla group--the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its acronym in Spanish as the
FARC--thousands of coca farmers in Putumayo and other southern states
marched in protest of the previous government's plan to eradicate coca with
herbicides in 1996. The protests turned violent, and several peasants were
killed in clashes with the army. Many of the protest leaders subsequently
joined the guerrillas.

Local government officials, unions and human rights organizations from four
southern Colombian states and 50 delegates from neighboring Ecuador held a
conference here last week to protest the policy of spraying the fields. The
two-day event, called "The South Responds," culminated in a rally under the
searing midday heat in the central square of Puerto Asis, where U.S.
Embassy and U.N. officials listened to people complain that they do not
want to be caught up in a war over drugs.

"We're not fighting here or making the war worse," Mayor Manuel Alzate told
a crowd of villagers and farmers, many of whom carried anti-Plan Colombia
banners. "We want peace and a Putumayo without coca."

Alzate said 43 villages in the area are ready to participate in a plan to
eradicate coca manually, instead of using chemicals, and to replace it with
other cash crops and industries. But any progress toward the mayor's goal
of eliminating the coca from his municipality in three years hinges on the
FARC's willingness to allow the project to move forward.

The guerrillas have said they oppose Plan Colombia, and last month they
allegedly killed a community leader and a member of the CMDR, the
government's rural development organization, who was trying to implement
Alzate's project.

"The CMDR has ceased to exist here," said Eder Sanchez, the organization's
leader, who added that some people have been threatened with death by the
rebels unless they renounce their association with the mayor.

But the FARC does not seem to have a uniform approach. Local developer
Dagoberto Martinez said he has gotten the rebels' temporary blessing to use
government money to implement a fish-farming project involving 102
families. Still, Martinez is worried.

"It is one thing to talk to them and another thing to get them to honor
their word," Martinez said while launching fish feed into one of 10
man-made ponds on the outskirts of town.

About 10 miles from the fish farm, locals say the FARC is preparing them
for the hand-to-hand combat that they expect to start once the U.S.-backed
military offensive against them begins. Farmers say they have been forced
to attend eight-day self-defense courses, build trenches around their homes
and obtain rifles--sometimes on credit from the guerrillas.

"They say we need to get guns in case of a paramilitary attack," said one
farmer, who was afraid to give his name. "But really this is just a
psychological attack on the people so that they follow the FARC's ideas or
join them."

This same farmer said he was risking his life coming to the city since the
paramilitaries that control the urban part of Puerto Asis would identify
him as a guerrilla supporter because he lives under rebel domain. At about
6 p.m. every evening, police stop patrolling the town, and militiamen begin
circling the streets on off-road motorcycles looking for any sign of
guerrilla activity.

Once pulsating with nightlife, many of the city's bars and brothels are now
largely empty. Since cleansing the area of much of its rebel influence,
locals say, the paramilitaries have begun a morality campaign that includes
parading unfaithful husbands and drug addicts naked around town.

Both the mayor and district attorney of Puerto Asis have demanded that
police and military do more to combat the right-wing groups, while human
rights advocates have questioned U.S. involvement in a region where the
militiamen operate without interference from the armed forces.

U.S. officials are said to be investigating these accusations and have
temporarily suspended aid to the local army battalion.