WAR CLOSING IN ON DRUG JUNCTION

Military, insurgent pressures paralyze town in Colombia

CALAMAR, Colombia -- The bloody struggle over the future of Colombia,
raging between shadowy groups of men and women with masks and false names,
is closing in on Calamar, a main transit point in the coca trade scratched
out of the jungle 20 years ago by the refugees of earlier conflicts in this
stricken country.

Many residents have not left the town, less than a square mile, in a year.
The only road out is controlled by paramilitaries who have established a
checkpoint a few miles from the nearest military base and charge coca
growers and food suppliers simply to get their products in and out of town.

Residents here fear that checkpoint. They fear dying for simply coming from
Calamar, which the paramilitaries label a rebel support base. In the last
year, residents say, more than 100 local people have been executed by the
paramilitaries.

Isolated by violence

``We're calm, but we're all very tense,'' said Amparo Gomez, 43, whose
family owns a bakery and billiard hall. ``We're surrounded.''

Patrolling the streets a few hours each day and controlling the surrounding
forests are rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
Latin America's oldest and most powerful insurgency. The rebels have
battered government military bases over the past two years, and the newly
inaugurated government of President Andres Pastrana has pledged to open
peace talks with them by early November.

This region produces 65 percent of Colombia's coca. The people of Calamar
do not grow coca, but their economy depends on it. Trucks laden with
gasoline to process coca leaves into paste rumble through. Peasants come to
sell coca paste. Pilots stop to rest and load up for the next flight out
from a clandestine airstrip.

``We're not the authors of the conflict, but we are its victims,'' said
Luiz Eduardo Betancourt, the local official responsible for denouncing
human rights violations by government employees.

Terror began a year ago, after hundreds of paramilitaries, led by Carlos
Castano, invaded the town of Mapiripan, 80 miles northeast of here, killing
at least 14 people during a five-day siege, according to the Colombian
Commission of Jurists, a human rights organization.

Panic spreads

In May, Castano's men massacred 14 peasants in Puerto Alvira, east of
Mapiripan. Two months ago they appeared just north of Calamar. Rumor spread
that uniformed army and police officers were among the paramilitaries.
Panic spread.

Now, any helicopter that passes overhead drives residents to the streets
with radios, madly tuning to the helicopter's radio frequency to see if
troops are flying in. Others dash for the forest. Newcomers, seen as
possible informers for the paramilitaries, are allowed to move here only if
a local resident vouches for them.

In conversation, people avoid blaming one side or the other for the terror
that circumscribes their lives.

Though heavily armed, the rebels appear respectful, paying for purchases
and chatting with locals over soda.

In a town that has long suffered from government neglect, the rebels impose
a harsh order. They banned commercial fishing in the Guaviare River to
replenish fish stock, persuaded residents to plant trees in the park and
cracked down on unruliness. Men no longer get away with killing, beating or
throwing out their wives, women in the town said.

Calamar has never been easy. Gomez arrived 25 years ago, when there were no
roads and only a tractor could get through the rain forest. To sell
produce, the entire family would trek 30 miles to the state capital, San
Jose del Guaviare.

Relative success

Gomez and her husband, Carlos, who had come here after nearly starving
elsewhere in Colombia, started out planting yucca, corn, rice and other
subsistence crops. Six years ago, they had enough money to open the bakery
and buy a few pool tables. ``Do we leave it all now?'' Gomez said.

Some residents say they feel safer with the insurgents nearby to fend off
any paramilitary raid.

For all its hardships, Calamar has a feeling of community that is hard-won
in Colombia, and not easily abandoned. Tatiana Rubio, a 20-year-old
waitress and single mother, arrived a year ago. ``People here watch out for
each other,'' she said. ``It's not like that everywhere.''

Few trust the military to protect them. The central government says it has
tried to crack down on military connivance with death squads, but most
residents here believe the paramilitaries include active or retired
security officers.

``How else is it that you'll have a military checkpoint on one road, and a
few hundred meters away have a paramilitary roadblock?'' Gomez said. ``Why
doesn't the military shut them down?''

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski