GUERRILLAS CONTROL HALF OF COLOMBIA

PUTUMAYO PROVINCE, Colombia -- While the other Marxist rebel movements and
marauding paramilitary groups in Latin America have all but disappeared, in
Colombia they are stronger than ever before, controlling more than half the
country, thanks to just one thing: drugs.

About 520 tons of cocaine and nine tons of heroin flow into the United
States from Colombia every year. In the opposite direction travel billions
of dollars.

An estimated $600 million of that finds its way into the coffers of Marxist
rebels -- most particularly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, who now number around 17,000 fighters and have shown themselves able
to take on the Colombian security forces and win.

But the guerrillas have no monopoly on the narcotics trade. Right-wing
paramilitaries also engage in drug trafficking to finance their own
campaigns of mayhem. And the endless violence has nearly overwhelmed the
government, beset by economic crisis as its resources are drained by the
drug warfare.

The FARC controls most of Putumayo, the epicenter of the coca-growing
region, Colombia's cocaine heartland. Here in the thick Amazonian jungle,
amid 150,000 acres of coca, is their most feared and richest force, the
Southern Block. It is also here that the Clinton administration plans to
send the $1.3 billion of U.S. aid.

The mainly military aid is designed to reverse the anti-drug campaign, which
the United States and Colombia have so far been losing. To demonstrate his
resolve against narcotics, President Clinton plans to visit Colombia
Wednesday, though he will stay in Cartegena, far away from the
drug-producing regions. A captive market

The Colombian commander-in-chief, Gen. Fernando Tapias, was clear about the
guerrillas' involve ment with the drug trade.

"The FARC charge for the crops, the coca base, the cocaine; they charge for
the precursor chemicals, the planes that enter and leave the country, and
the illegal landing strips, and in the south of the country, in the province
of Putumayo, the FARC are the monopoly that control all the coca base that
is produced," he said, adding, "about 300 tons every year."

The coca growers in the guerrillas' area of influence must sell the coca
base they produce to FARC, for less than $1,000 a kilogram. The price paid
by the drug traffickers varies, but on the streets of San Francisco that
cocaine is worth $100,000, a markup of more than 1,000 percent.

The FARC leaders are spending their profits wisely. They do not pay their
fighters monthly wages, but they do help out the families and give them
spending money. The rest is invested in international portfolios -- and the
best weapons and communications equipment the black market can provide.

At guerrilla checkpoints, FARC guerrillas have been seen with laptop
computers attached to satellite telephones, accessing the financial records
of people they have stopped to see whether they are worth kidnapping. With
an average of eight abductions a day, most by the guerrillas, it is FARC's
second biggest earner after drugs.

Sophisticated weaponry

In the 16,000-square-mile demilitarized zone given to the FARC for peace
talks, shiny 4X4 jeeps speed along the dirt tracks between guerrilla camps,
the commanders carrying new U.S.-made AR-15 assault rifles.

Sources within U.S. military circles have said that their reconnaissance
planes over Colombia have been "locked on" by missile systems, which if
correct would mean the FARC has top-of-the-range ground-to-air missile
systems.

A FARC source from the Southern Block, known as Christian, was contemptuous
of the Colombian army's ability to take them on, even with backing by the
United States.

"Thanks to our weapons and training, we have beaten the best the Colombian
army has to offer," Christian said, referring to the March 1998 action
against the elite 3rd Mobile Brigade, which was lured into an ambush by the
Southern Block and annihilated.

The destabilizing effect of the narco-wars has taken a toll on the whole
country, not just Putumayo. Colombia is in the depths of a recession, with
unemployment exceeding 20 percent. State funds are running low, and the
country is borrowing massively from abroad just to keep the economy afloat.

Right-wing death squads

While federal security forces have had no success in stopping the FARC
expansion through Colombia, the right-wing paramilitary army of the
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, has "cleansed" vast tracts of
Colombia of Marxist guerrillas. Human rights groups insist the
paramilitaries act with the connivance, if not the active support, of the
Colombian army.

The feared warlord Carlos Castano, who heads the 7,000-strong army of
right-wing death squads, inherited the mantle from his brother Fidel, once a
part of the Medell(R)n drug cartel when it was the most powerful crime
organization in the world. Fidel Castano is now dead, killed in a battle
with guerrillas in the jungles near the Panama border, but his brother
carries the torch with even more ruthless efficiency.

"We have absolutely nothing to do with drug traffickers," asserted Commander
Hawk, the head of the AUC in Putumayo. Looking like the drug traffickers he
maintains he loathes, a gold chain around his neck and a semi-automatic
pistol on his bedside table, he insisted the AUC acted only as a facilitator
and intermediary.

Peasants in Putumayo tell a very different story.

"The paras (paramilitaries) are offering 2.4 million pesos ($1,200) for a
kilo of coca base, while the guerrillas in the jungle only pay 1.8 million
($900)," said JosAE Sonza, who has a few fields in the jungle.

Carlos Castano has admitted publicly that 70 percent of his income comes
from the drug trade, but insisted the the paramilitaries were not drug
traffickers, echoing the words of the guerrilla groups.

Yet the AUC is involved in the drug trade even deeper than are the
guerrillas. There is overwhelming evidence that the paramilitaries have
their own laboratories to process the coca base into refined cocaine and are
involved in actual exports of the lucrative white powder.

In May 1999, the largest drug-processing lab ever was discovered in
Magdalena Medio, one of the heartlands of paramilitary power. Capable of
producing eight tons of cocaine a month, the complex covered more than 7
square miles, with laboratories up to four stories high lurking under the
jungle canopy. Each lab was protected by a control tower. Sleeping
facilities suggested at least 200 people were employed at the site.

Attracting recruits

The Castano brothers set up their right-wing private army after their father
was kidnapped, then murdered, by the FARC. The AUC exists in order to fight
the guerrillas -- and therein lies its strength. In the name of
counterinsurgency and protecting people against guerrilla outrages, the
paramilitary forces have attracted recruits from all sectors of society.

"The AUC is a mishmash of people -- of ex-members of the security forces,
soldiers and police who have been sacked from the services for failing to
fulfill the ethics of those institutions," Tapias said. "There are many
ex-guerrillas, there are ex-drug traffickers, ex-convicts, ex-everything.
This movement is united by two things, hatred of the guerrilla and desire
for money," he insisted.

The AUC is growing fast because it is well financed from the drug trade and
also because it is beating the Marxist guerrillas, while the legitimate
security forces have had little success.

The way the paramilitary death squads work is very simple and frighteningly
successful. Their secret weapon is the massacre, and there is an average of
one every day in Colombia.

AUC death squads arrive, with a list in hand, in a community where they
contend the guerrillas have sympathizers. Anybody on that list, male or
female, young or old, is killed, and often tortured first for information.

The most notorious recent massacre occurred in February, when death squads
occupied the village of El Salado in the northern province of Bol(R)var. For
72 hours they tortured the community, taking victims to the village
basketball court where they were laid out on a table and mutilated by
laughing paramilitaries who drank continuously as they performed their
grisly work. By the time they left, 28 people had been killed, and the whole
community was forever scarred.

Last year in Colombia, there were 403 massacres -- a massacre is said to
have occurred if at least four people were killed in one murderous spree --
with a total of 1,865 victims. Some 40 percent of these massacres can be
traced directly to the AUC.

Scores of army generals, officers and lower ranks have been convicted of
aiding the paramilitaries in their grisly massacres. To get the $1.3 billion
aid package through the human rights safeguards that U.S. law attempts to
build into its aid programs, Clinton had to sign a presidential waiver. When
he arrives in Colombia on Wednesday, Clinton will praise the government for
its anti-narcotics resolve and tout the benefits of the U.S. aid in
restoring a civil society. He probably won't address the big questions --
whether the U.S. aid will fall into the wrong hands, stem drug supplies to
the United States, or indeed do anything other than escalate the 36-year
civil conflict.