COLOMBIA'S COCA TRADE RULES ROAD, GUERRILLAS, TRAFFICKERS, SOLDIERS IN
ABUNDANCE

LA HORMIGA, Colombia (Chicago Tribune) -- Driving into the heart of
Colombia's coca-growing region is not for the faint of heart.

The washboard dirt road starts at Puerto Asis, a busy river town in
Colombia's far southern hills, and the first military checkpoint comes at
the edge of town. As fatigue-clad soldiers draped with automatic rifles
watch, we dodge sorry-looking barricades of wood pallets propped against
red-and-white striped drums and lurch ahead slowly.

Just a few miles out of town sits the compound of the local right-wing
paramilitary unit, with its swimming lake and soccer field. Just a bit down
the road, our driver points out a burned spot in a field, a favorite place
for dumping bodies.

The locals tell us that at least a couple of people die each week here,
though it's often hard to tell whether the paramilitary soldiers, the local
left-wing guerrillas or jilted lovers are to blame.

At Santa Ana, the start of coca country, the road turns to asphalt, waved
and puckered under the hot tropical sun. Progress is little faster, though,
mainly because of the barricades.

Seemingly every few miles, someone has blocked the road. A few are official
military checkpoints, where soldiers ask for identification before allowing
vehicles to pass. Others, though, are free-lance jobs.

Before La Hormiga, our destination, we come across a thick hunk of rope
tied across the road between two stout saplings. As we stop, a little
anxious, half-a-dozen campesinos, or peasants, surround the car proffering
homemade Popsicles, hard candy and what one man lugging an aluminum pot
enthusiastically touts as "tasty meat."

Salsa music blares from a hut just up the hill, and the atmosphere is more
festive than alarming. We dig into our pockets and buy some hard candy, the
better to keep the locals happy.

Down the road, there is another rope. This time a handful of stern-looking
women and a few girls approach the car and tell us they are collecting
funds for the local school. Again, we dig in our pockets for change and are
rewarded for our generosity with straight pins stuck through tiny red
ribbons. We are just relieved to have been stopped by the local PTA instead
of rebels interested in kidnapping journalists.

As the road winds south, toward the Ecuadorean border, an oil pipeline
joins it, hugging the shoulder. A half-hour later, at our destination, we
look up from an interview with the local mayor to see a huge column of
black smoke rising into the sky, an oil fire not more than two miles away.

Have guerrillas blown up the oil line? Worse, is it on our route home? The
soldiers at the checkpoint outside town confirm the pipeline explosion but
aren't sure what caused it. We're relieved when the twisting road home
turns away from the smoke.

The road itself is a testament to guerrilla strength in the area. Bright
green fields of young coca plants, hidden deep in the hills in most regions
of Colombia, grow right up to the road's shoulder here, with no effort made
to hide them. Murders and disappear- ances are frequent.

Bombings are also a regular problem. Guerrillas in the area hook starters
to tanks of natural gas -- the same ones you use with the gas grill -- and
launch them at police stations and other symbols of government authority.
While the guerrillas say they try to avoid civilians, plenty of innocent
people die.

For most people, it's a little hard to distinguish the guerrillas from the
paramilitaries from the regular soldiers from the narcotraffickers.

At dusk, as we near Puerto Asis again, the road fills with rifle-toting
soldiers walking the couple of miles back to their base. On the edge of
town, we are searched for the last time. A soldier shines a flashlight onto
the floor of the backseat. He insists that the glove box be unlocked so he
can check for weapons. Finally, we were waved back through the barricades.

We all breathe a sign of relief.