U.S. GOES ON ATTACK IN JUNGLE

Colombian troops target drug dealers

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia — It was an all too common sight in a region where
leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups battle for control of the
world's biggest cocaine-producing region: a man's body with a handwritten
sign on his back saying he was killed for collaborating with the guerrillas.

Now, U.S.-trained and equipped troops are entering the lethal environment as
part of a major anti-narcotics offensive that has alarmed not only coca
farmers but local officials and human rights advocates.

Colombian army troops, trained by Green Berets and other U.S. Special
Forces, will be flown into the jungles of Putumayo province aboard
U.S.-donated Blackhawk and Huey helicopters. Their mission: to seize coca
plantations so that low-flying planes can spray them with herbicide without
being shot down. Thousands are expected to be forced from their homes.

The government contends beefing up the military and undercutting rebel drug
proceeds will strengthen peace negotiations with the insurgents. But that
logic is lost on many Putumayo officials.

"This is not a plan for peace. It is a plan for war," snapped Manuel Alzate,
mayor of Puerto Asis, a town in the heart of the coca-growing region. He and
other Putumayo officials are trying to persuade the national government to
call off the offensive that forms part of a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package.

But there is no sign the government is wavering. Meanwhile, rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are preparing a
counter-punch.

The FARC — which observers say earns millions of dollars per week from a
drug protection racket — is reportedly already giving weapons training to
some coca farmers.

Also involved in the drug trade is a national paramilitary group, the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, with strong ties to the Colombian military
and many former government soldiers.

The paramilitary force has cut into rebel profits by buying coca paste — the
coca derivative used to make cocaine — from farmers at better prices than
the rebels.

Both groups are notorious human rights violators.

The paramilitary commander for Putumayo, who insisted on being identified by
his nom de guerre, Falcon, casually acknowledges that his forces commit
abuses.

Clad in jeans and a black Armani Exchange T-shirt, Falcon said such tactics
make the paramilitary group a vital component to government security forces.

"No area of Colombia has been taken by the government without our presence.
We can operate effectively because we don't have the judicial restraints
that are imposed on government forces," Falcon said in an interview last
week at his heavily guarded compound near Puerto Asis.

Barely an hour after the interview, Associated Press journalists came across
a body on a muddy road outside town.

"They killed me for being a collaborator with the FARC (and) for being an
informant," said a sign placed on the man. Passers-by stared at the corpse,
then quickly moved on.

FARC has also murdered its opponents, and allegedly was behind the 1998
assassination of a Roman Catholic priest in Putumayo.

Few people dare discuss the killings.

"Here it's the law of silence," said a woman vendor at a Puerto Asis street
stall. "Talking can cost you your life."

During daytime, the town bustles. Shops offer expensive tools and other
wares not normally available in rural areas; motor scooters, the town's
favorite mode of transportation, crisscross the streets.

After dusk, Puerto Asis becomes a ghost town.

On the few roads carved through the jungle, rebels or paramilitary squads
suddenly erect roadblocks. Motorists believed to be partial to the wrong
side are sometimes taken away and never heard from again.

It is into this lawless land that the United States is making its stand
against the drug trade and attempting to shore up an embattled democracy,
located only a three-hour flight from Miami.

"This is not East Timor, Kosovo or Sierra Leone," Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State William Brownfield said in an interview in Washington. "Colombia is
one of the larger countries in Latin America. One would have to be an idiot
to argue that Colombia does not have fundamental importance to us."

About 100 anti-narcotics troops, members of a battalion trained by U.S.
Special Forces, have begun reconnaissance operations in Putumayo. Under the
bill signed by President Clinton, the United States will train two more
battalions and provide 60 combat helicopters. Full-scale operations are
expected within months from the Tres Esquinas army base, perched on
Putumayo's northern border.

Falcon said his forces would not attempt to defend the coca fields. But some
analysts believe the Colombian military may use their paramilitary allies
during the offensive, thus possibly indirectly linking the U.S. aid to human
rights abuses.

"There is concern whether the paramilitaries will be used as some sort of
force, using dirty-war tactics, to clear the guerrillas out of the area.
This is not in the U.S. policy, but it's hard to tell what's going to
happen," said Adam Isacson, an analyst for the Washington-based Center for
International Policy.

For the government troops, finding the coca plantations in Putumayo — which
produces an estimated 600 tons of cocaine per year — should be easy. Fields
planted with the shiny green shrubs extend to the outskirts of some towns —
a green ocean that pumps millions of dollars into an otherwise moribund
local economy.

"Coca is a way of survival for us," said Juliberto Rodriguez, 57, clearing
jungle growth to grow more coca on his farm, an hour's ride by motorized
canoe upriver from Puerto Asis.

"Look, there are not even any roads here," he said, pointing with his
machete. "If I had a good alternative, I wouldn't bother with coca."

Even if the U.S.-backed offensive in Putumayo and neighboring provinces
wipes out existing coca crops, the hardy bushes — which can be harvested
four times a year — are likely to pop up elsewhere.

"If the helicopters and the troops come, we will have to leave," said grower
Victoriano Tocayo. "But we don't have a place to go, so what we'll do is
head for a more remote area and start growing coca all over again."