COLOMBIAN TOWN AT MERCY OF PARAMILITARY DEATH SQUADS

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - Black spirals of buzzards mark the fresh corpses
that turn up in this frontier town and in the nearby coca fields, jungle
and pastures.

Despite patrols by Colombian soldiers and police, paramilitary death squads
roam freely, killing suspected rebel collaborators or anyone else who gets
in their way. The carnage is mounting, and terrified residents don't know
where to turn for help.

"We are in Puerto Asis, where there is no justice, no law," snapped a
medical worker, who asked not to be named for fear he might be killed for
speaking out.

The paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia has waged a war of
terror across Colombia in its zeal to combat the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC, and a smaller rebel group engaged in a 38-year-old
war against the government.

In the meantime, Colombian civilians - like the residents of Puerto Asis -
are caught in the middle.

In only a few months, more than 100 civilians, including two mayoral
candidates, have been shot dead in this town in the steamy southern
lowlands of Colombia's cocaine heartland. Many wind up buried in body bags
in the trash-strewn "nameless" section of the town cemetery.

Police and soldiers set up checkpoints and patrol streets filled with
snarling motorcycles, smog-belching buses and horse-drawn carts. But they
seem unable to stop the bloodshed.

Members of the outlawed paramilitary prowl through town, wearing baseball
caps over close-cropped hair, pistols stuck into jeans beneath
loose-fitting shirts.

Residents admit they're terrified of being targeted but also suspect the
police and army turn a blind eye to the killings.

Authorities say the killers get away scot-free because few witnesses are
brave enough to point fingers.

"Those who make an accusation against the killers better have their plane
ticket ready to fly to another country," the medical worker said.

Says Puerto Asis Mayor Manuel Alzate, who survived an assassination attempt
last year: "They are afraid to report the killings, because they think
there will be reprisals against them."

The paramilitaries moved into Puerto Asis about three years ago, while FARC
guerrillas occupy rural areas outside the town. The guerrillas are known to
commit their own killings in areas they control.

On the evening of July 28, Leonidas Yague, a municipal official until he
resigned in May to run for mayor, left his mother at home and headed to a
nearby store, only to be slain on the street.

"He said, 'Mom, I'll be back in a little while,' " his mother, Rosa
Benavides, recalled as tears sprang to her eyes. "Twenty minutes later he
was dead."

One of the few who takes the carnage in stride is funeral director Maria Cruz.

"Business is great, thank God," she told a reporter without a hint of
irony, sitting amid empty coffins trimmed with purple velvet. "Sometimes
there are bodies everywhere."