LIFE IN THE COCAINE FIELDS OF COLOMBIA

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia (AP) -- Nestling by a broad river that gently flows
through the rain forest lies Puerto Asis, a village that subsists on coca,
the raw material for cocaine.

Villagers carefully tend their coca plants. Every three months they harvest
the leaves, and tote them in burlap sacks to rudimentary laboratories where
they are processed into coca paste.

Every week, buyers come down the river to buy the paste, which is then
converted into crystallized cocaine for sale in the United States, Europe
and elsewhere.

The village is just one of hundreds that grow coca in southern Colombia's
Amazonian jungles. The area is a hotbed where deadly forces operate: the
leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and a rival right-wing
paramilitary group. Both are making money from the cocaine-producing industry.

But within a few months, Colombian troops trained and armed by the United
States are expected to descend on the area aboard Blackhawk and Huey
helicopters in a campaign to take control of the coca fields. The rebels
have vowed to fight back.

President Clinton will highlight the anti-drug offensive when he visits
Colombia on August 30.

Thousands of people are expected to be displaced once the "Push Into
Southern Colombia" is launched.

The coca farmers say they have no alternative source of livelihood in a
region long neglected by the government. Observers fear some will join
either the rebels or the paramilitary group after the anti-drug offensive
starts.

Some farmers, though, say they will just move deeper into the jungle, and
start planting coca all over again.