News from Putamayo

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia - (AP) No gasoline. No electricity. No running water.
For more than a week, residents of this ramshackle city have been living in fear and deprivation since rebels declared the state of Putumayo in southern Colombia a no-drive zone and began blowing up bridges, electrical towers and oil production facilities. As the crisis deepened, a Colombian Air Force C-130 on Thursday night airlifted out 82 stranded civilians from Puerto Asis _ Putumayo's main city _ after ferrying in 12 tons of food.

"We are enduring uncertainty," Julio Rodriguez said as he joined locals crowding the airport gate to watch soldiers unload sacks of rice, sugar and other staples from the yawning belly of the Hercules cargo plane. "We don't know what's going to happen. For example, we hear the outlawed groups may be surrounding the town. During the night we hear explosions."

U.S. officials who launched a massive aerial fumigation of cocaine-producing crops in this isolated state almost five years ago believed then that the "outlawed groups" _ the leftist rebels and their right-wing paramilitary foes who control cocaine production in Colombia _ would be long gone from Putumayo by now. The theory was that with the thousands of acres (hectares) of coca having been withered by the herbicide, the insurgent gunmen would leave.

When the fumigation began in 2000, 163,140.36 acres (66,022 hectares) of coca flourished in Putumayo, according to the United Nations. By the end of last year, only 10,838 acres (4,386 hectares) remained.

But some of the peasant farmers who make a living growing coca have been doggedly replanting their crops after the spray planes leave. And the nine-day old offensive shows the rebels are far from gone. Last month, they killed 22 soldiers in an attack on a remote Putumayo outpost.

The camouflage-clad fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have burned at least two buses and two trucks that violated their travel ban. A dozen civilians traveling in a bus were wounded in a crossfire between army troops and rebels. On Wednesday, rebels killed two soldiers and wounded four as they traveled in a convoy from a neighboring state as reinforcements.

Putumayo is paralyzed. The few commercial flights on small planes out of Puerto Asis are booked solid. Motorists are afraid to drive on rural roads. Even though numerous oil wells perforate the state and a pipeline runs through it, gasoline stations are mostly dry.

"Up to the moment, it's chaotic," said Victor Alfonso Montenegro, general manager of Contramayo Ltd., a regional bus company. He said the travel ban is in effect indefinitely for all of Putumayo's highways, most of them dirt roads that cut through jungle and withered coca plantations.

The United Nations said Friday it is "extremely concerned."
"The disruption in transportation is leading to a severe shortage of food and other essential items," Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva. "We urge all parties to allow persons in the combat zones to move to safer areas and to permit humanitarian workers to reach people in need of assistance."

If the travel ban continues, Montenegro said some of Contramayo's workers would be temporarily laid off. About 1,000 families depend on the income of company employees.

Puerto Asis Mayor Luis Fernando Gaviria told The Associated Press that much of the food that arrived in the C-130 would be airlifted by military helicopters to Orito and other Putumayo towns where food is growing scarce. For now, food shortages have not yet hit Puerto Asis, with population of about 28,000, though some supermarkets are running short of fresh vegetables. With the municipal water system having run dry since the power went out, some residents have been using wells to get their water.

At the red-brick Hotel Chilimaco in the center of town, receptionist Ruth Pantoja sat morosely in the dark. The hotel was almost vacant because travelers canceled their reservations when the rebel blockade began. It's all part of a downward slide of Puerto Asis, she said.

"Things have gotten worse here since the fumigation of coca began," she complained. "The economy of the town is now in such bad shape, because the people who made their living off coca now have no money, and the businesses in town suffer as a result."

As the sun set, plunging the town into darkness, 82 civilians began filing into the gunmetal gray Hercules, their suitcases and backpacks having been checked by bomb-squad dogs. Most of the evacuees were college students needing to return to school with the midterm break now ending. They strapped themselves into webbed seats, some laughing and mugging for each others cameras. But underlying the levity was concern.

"Things are getting bad around here," said Dalila Buenavides, a 19-year-old student at the University of Ibague, in central Colombia. "I can return to school, but my parents are remaining here, and they are very sad about what's happening."

By Mr. Hollywood on Jul 29, 2005, 11:35 in Politics & the war.

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jul 30, 2005, 01:47:

Put U mayo I don't usually get into tiny spelling mistakes but this one just begs to be corrected. It's P u t u m a y o, not p u t a m a y o. Whatever were you thinking about, hollywood?
Cheers,
Desi

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mr. Hollywood says on Jul 30, 2005, 13:17:

I was thinking I must have been thinking what a bitch it is living there right now.

Lucia Rojas says on Jul 30, 2005, 14:47:

Its sad it's such a beautiful region....and a beautiful river....

Hunter says on Jul 30, 2005, 23:48:

GringoDeLouisian I just read the news about Colombia mostly in English on the link below, the AP reports generally appear in there:

http://caribenet.com/cartagena/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=viewlink&cid=3

Hunter