COCAINE WAR A special report. (Part II of IV)

THE COMBATANTS

Coca Brings Shooting From Many Directions

In the jungle and the farming villages, the distinction that the Pentagon
and the State Department try to draw between arming an anti-drug war and
avoiding Colombia's long-running civil conflict is blurred. The drug trade
finances both the leftist insurgents and their rivals, the paramilitary
death squads, who often operate with the tacit support of Colombian Army units.

"When people are shooting at you, it is hard to determine their immediate
affiliation," said William Ledwith, director of international operations
for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. "Does it really make
a difference if you are attacked by the F.A.R.C., the E.L.N., by
paramilitaries or by a gang of narcotics traffickers wanting to defend
their laboratories?" he asked, using the acronyms for the guerrillas
groups. "To me, all the bullets are the same."

The rapid expansion of coca production in Colombia is in large part a
consequence of two developments. One is what is known as the "balloon
effect" -- the reappearance of a problem in a new place after it has been
squeezed in another -- which followed successful American-led campaigns
against coca growers in Peru and Bolivia.

The other, more recent development was a crucial miscalculation by
President Pastrana. Elected on the promise of ending the debilitating war
against the guerrillas, he tried to lure them to the negotiating table in
1998 by granting the leading guerrilla group control over a chunk of
territory larger than Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.
The guerrillas quickly turned it into an armed protectorate and a
coca-growing factory, and the peace talks have floundered.

The breakup of the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels -- the D.E.A. once
called the latter "the most dangerous criminal group in history" -- was
originally expected to cripple the Colombian drug business. But their
demise actually served to spur coca cultivation in more remote regions of
the country and to foster unholy alliances between new drug gangs on one
side and the leftist guerrillas and paramilitary forces on the other.

Just five years ago, Putumayo and neighboring Caqueta province were perhaps
the poorest and most neglected areas of the country. Today, they have
become a paradise for coca growers, with more than 100,000 acres cultivated
under the protection of the largest rebel group, F.A.R.C.

Colombian trafficking groups have not only pushed aside Peru and Bolivia,
the traditional sources of raw coca leaf, but also have moved aggressively
into the heroin business, replacing Southeast Asia and Afghanistan as the
source of most of the heroin seized in the United States.

For the Colombian military, that is a formidable challenge.

Though the national armed forces look strong on paper, with more than
100,000 soldiers, barely a third of them are ready for fighting. Under a
widely criticized law that reflects the class prejudice and favoritism that
run through Colombian society, high school graduates are forbidden to
participate in combat.

The Colombian 90th Marine Battalion, to which Lieutenant Arenas, 28, and
his teenage soldiers belong, patrols more than 1,500 miles of waterways in
a network of four major rivers with barely 1,000 men and a handful of boats.

"For an area like this, a thousand men is nothing," Lieutenant Arenas said
as his gunboat, the A.R.C. Leticia, equipped with two cannons, two machine
guns and a pair of grenade launchers, chugged up the Putumayo River, with
only the sound of its motors breaking the quiet. "Even though my guys are
motivated, skilled and happy to be here, they face a lot of limitations."

NEXT CHAPTER: The American Role, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n528/a04.html