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Sunday, October 29, 2000

Civilians trapped in war over Colombia's coca
Rebels impose blockade on southern coca state; scared families are 'caught between the bullets'
By Andrew Selsky
Associated Press
SAN ISIDRO, Colombia - At almost any sudden noise, the children in Adiela Vela's class give a startled jump. Eyes dart through windows to a band of right-wing militiamen whose weapons are trained down the road.
   This is the front line in the battle for the heart of the world's cocaine-producing industry. And not only are civilians caught in the crossfire, they are also now enduring a rebel blockade.
   The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - the largest of the leftist rebel groups that have been fighting the government and right-wing paramilitaries for years in a bloody civil war -imposed the armed shutdown five weeks ago. Most of the world's coca, from which cocaine is made, is grown in southern Colombia's Putumayo state, and the rebel group launched the shutdown to protest a planned U.S.-backed offensive to stamp out the drug trade here.
   The FARC rebels have banned vehicles from traveling between towns in all but the limited areas under the control of the army or the rightist paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC. The rebels are also waging a sabotage campaign that has cut electricity to major towns.
   The rebels have threatened to maintain the armed shutdown until President Andres Pastrana revamps his Plan Colombia, the initiative that calls for U.S.-trained army troops to seize the coca fields.Every day, civilians sweat through AUC roadblocks. The paramilitary gunmen click safeties off assault rifles, ready to haul away anyone believed to be a rebel partisan.
   A group of Rambo-like AUC fighters stood outside the concrete one-room schoolhouse in San Isidro as the young students tried to concentrate on their studies.
   Meanwhile, the effects of the rebel blockade are being felt across Putumayo. Hospitals are running critically short of supplies. Store shelves are running bare. Thousands of terrified Colombians have fled to Ecuador since September, according to relief agencies. Meanwhile, other families try to flee Putumayo on one of the infrequent military evacuation flights.
   "We are suffering the consequences of a war that has nothing to do with us," said Dagoberto Rojas as he waited for a flight. "Here, we are caught between the bullets."

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