Colombian rebels owe power to demoralized army, scandalized regime Copyright 1998 Nando.net Copyright 1998 The Associated Press FLORENCIA, Colombia (March 11, 1998 2:30 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) -- When a peasant falls ill in the heart of Colombia's coca territory, leftist guerrillas order his bosses to pay his doctor bills. Health insurance, revolutionary style. Rebels divvy up property when marriages break up, run child-care centers and impose swift gun-barrel justice on those accused of collaborating with the military, as well as on common criminals. After the guerrillas killed scores of elite soldiers in a dense southern jungle last week, President Ernesto Samper swore to never allow "independent republics" within the nation's borders. But in the southwestern state of Caqueta and other states where rebels hold sway, it may be too late. "Guerrillas are the authority and the law," said Olga Arenas, director of Caqueta's land reform program. "They have taken the place of the state." Drug scandals at the highest levels of government -- and the military's lack of a coherent counterinsurgency strategy -- have left the rebels stronger than ever and the army demoralized. Four years after Samper's presidential campaign accepted millions of dollars from the Cali cocaine cartel, last week's military debacle illustrated just how much ground Colombia's scandalized government has lost to the rebels. Outwitted, outnumbered and surrounded, between 60 and 80 soldiers died at the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, in Caqueta along the Caguan River -- the army's worst defeat since it began fighting rebels 35 years ago. The armed forces have been roundly criticized for a major intelligence failure. Samper, too, has been blamed for demilitarizing 5,000 square miles of Caqueta last June in exchange for the freedom of 70 captured soldiers. If the army had a foothold beforehand, it now is clinging by its toes. An army colonel who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity conceded that high-level drug corruption has played havoc with soldiers' morale. In Caqueta, people have long been caught in the crossfire of drug traffickers, rebels and the army. In the area of last week's fighting, there are no hospitals, schools or courts; officials' much touted crop substitution program -- their attempt to provide alternatives to coca growing -- is widely considered a failure. The guerrillas are more than happy to fill the vacuum left by an absent and discredited state. Along the Caguan River, coca is the only game in town. There are no roads to bring legal crops to market. And only coca growers can afford to buy gasoline, which authorities heavily tax because traffickers use it to turn coca into cocaine. The Samper scandal, combined with a police campaign to fumigate coca crops with the herbicide glyphosate, has spurred resentment against the government and support for the rebels. "The president ate 6 million dollars from the Cali cartel and who do they throw in jail? The tiny coca growers here in Caqueta," laments Carlos Alberto Guzman, 30, a peasant who abandoned his land after government planes sprayed glyphosate on his coca, yucca, and corn crops last year. Much of the cocaine consumed in the United States and Europe originates in Caqueta, where U.S. drug agents in 1984 discovered Tranquilandia, a huge network of jungle laboratories belonging to slain Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar -- history's most famous drug bust. Today, the jungle is a lawless frontier where FARC rebels guard cocaine labs, all the while slamming Samper for his alleged drug links. The rebels gloss over the contradiction, insisting the government is in bed with big drug dealers while their mission is merely to protect small coca farmers. Like many residents of the southern jungles, Guzman speaks fondly of the guerrillas. But the people of Caqueta are growing weary of the armed conflict, which is expanding rapidly throughout Colombia. In one remarkable incident two days after last week's fighting began, 27 soldiers -- their food and ammunition exhausted -- staggered into Penas Coloradas, a FARC jungle stronghold. Villagers invited the men into their homes and tended to the wounded. When the FARC arrived, local leaders insisted on humane treatment, persuading the guerrillas to allow each captured soldier to sign his name to a document they then passed along to federal officials. Explained 68-year-old farmer Jose German Diaz: "It hurts me when a guerrilla dies. And it hurts me just as much when a soldier dies. We're all Colombians." By STEVEN GUTKIN, The Associated Press
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