By Steven Dudley
Special to The Washington Post

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia –– Violence is not new to Puerto Asis, a town of 45,000 where rightist paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas fight for control of the
surrounding drug-growing area. But fear and uncertainty grip the city these days as the Colombian government, with $1.3 billion in U.S. funding, prepares an
offensive to reestablish government control and wipe out the drug-producing plantations here in Putumayo province.

As part of the government's $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, the United States is sending intelligence equipment and 60 helicopters to security forces here and is training
troops to retake this forgotten region 350 miles southwest of Bogota and eradicate an estimated 120,000 acres of coca, the raw material of cocaine.

President Andres Pastrana's government has portrayed Plan Colombia as a strategy for peace that will include social and economic programs for small farmers so
they can turn away from growing coca. But in Puerto Asis, people have heard only of plans to beef up the military, and they expect police to start spraying chemicals
on their fields, their livestock and on them, too.

"When they take this coca away from us, the war is really going to start," said one elderly farmer as he walked through the acre of coca that he says supports his five
children. "I may be a little bit older, but I'll grab my rifle and defend myself and even kill if I have to."

At the behest of the country's largest guerrilla group--the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its acronym in Spanish as the FARC--thousands of
coca farmers in Putumayo and other southern provinces marched in protest of the previous government's plan to eradicate coca with herbicides in 1996. The protests
turned violent, and several peasants were killed in clashes with the army. Many of the protest leaders subsequently joined the guerrillas.

Local government officials, unions and human rights organizations from four southern Colombian provinces and 50 delegates from neighboring Ecuador held a
conference here last week to protest the policy of spraying the fields. The two-day event, called "The South Responds," culminated in a rally under the searing
midday heat in the central square of Puerto Asis, where U.S. Embassy and U.N. officials listened to people complain that they do not want to be caught up in a war
over drugs.

"We're not fighting here or making the war worse," Mayor Manuel Alzate told a crowd of villagers and farmers, many of whom carried anti-Plan Colombia banners.
"We want peace and a Putumayo without coca."

Alzate said 43 villages in the area are ready to participate in a plan to eradicate coca manually, instead of using chemicals, and to replace it with other cash crops and
industries. But any progress toward the mayor's goal of eliminating the coca from his municipality in three years hinges on the FARC's willingness to allow the project
to move forward.

The guerrillas have said they oppose Plan Colombia, and last month they allegedly killed a community leader and a member of the CMDR, the government's rural
development organization, who was trying to implement Alzate's project.

"The CMDR has ceased to exist here," said Eder Sanchez, the organization's leader, who added that some people have been threatened with death by the rebels
unless they renounce their association with the mayor.

But the FARC does not seem to have a uniform approach. Local developer Dagoberto Martinez said he has gotten the rebels' temporary blessing to use government
money to implement a fish-farming project involving 102 families. Still, Martinez is worried.

"It is one thing to talk to them and another thing to get them to honor their word," Martinez said while launching fish feed into one of 10 man-made ponds on the
outskirts of town.

About 10 miles from the fish farm, locals say the FARC is preparing them for the hand-to-hand combat that they expect to start once the U.S.-backed military
offensive against them begins. Farmers say they have been forced to attend eight-day self-defense courses, build trenches around their homes and obtain
rifles--sometimes on credit from the guerrillas.

"They say we need to get guns in case of a paramilitary attack," said one farmer, who was afraid to give his name. "But really this is just a psychological attack on the
people so that they follow the FARC's ideas or join them."

This same farmer said he was risking his life coming to the city since the paramilitaries that control the urban part of Puerto Asis would identify him as a guerrilla
supporter because he lives under rebel domain. At about 6 p.m. every evening, police stop patrolling the town, and militiamen begin circling the streets on off-road
motorcycles looking for any sign of guerrilla activity.

Once pulsating with nightlife, many of the city's bars and brothels are now largely empty. Since cleansing the area of much of its rebel influence, locals say, the
paramilitaries have begun a morality campaign that includes parading unfaithful husbands and drug addicts naked around town.

Both the mayor and district attorney of Puerto Asis have demanded that police and military do more to combat the right-wing groups, while human rights advocates
have questioned U.S. involvement in a region where the militiamen operate without interference from the armed forces.

U.S. officials are said to be investigating these accusations and have temporarily suspended aid to the local army battalion.