Services suffer in Colombian region

 BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 ARAUCA, Colombia -- In a region so rich in oil that it's been called ``Saudi Arauca,'' 70-year old Tránsito Pelayo may die because a public hospital lacks $10 for blood tests needed to monitor her failing heart.

 And that, in one of the ugliest pages of Colombia's bloody war, is because leftist FARC guerrillas are trying to blackmail two U.S. and Colombian oil companies by
 mercilessly bombing an oil pipeline whose royalties cover 92 percent of all the region's government budgets.

 ``They say they fight for the people, but they are hurting us,'' said Pelayo's daughter Rosalba, sobbing as doctors at the San Vicente Hospital sent her to a much more expensive private clinic for her mother's tests.

 The FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have bombed the 18-inch pipeline 110 times since the beginning of the year, shutting it down almost completely and costing a stunning $400 million in lost crude sales income alone.

 With royalties shriveled to a trickle, compared to $100 million last year, state and municipal governments have halted all public works and most nonemergency procedures at public hospitals and laid off hundreds of workers.

 Not to mention the ecological damage caused by the millions of barrels of crude spilled, leaving huge black splotches around this Everglades-like waterlogged region of emerald-green savannas on Colombia's eastern border with Venezuela.

 Colombia's army sent in 2,000 reinforcements last month and banned all highway travel between dusk and dawn, but even military and police officers admit it's nigh
 impossible to totally secure the 483-mile pipeline.

 ``This is an area totally dominated by the guerrillas,'' said Maj. Héctor Castellanos, deputy police chief for the region. ``If the Americans can't guard their border with
 Mexico, how can we guard this tube?''

 And the future looks even bleaker.

 The FARC has ordered a statewide strike for later this month -- to be enforced with guns and bombs, as well as by expanding the blockade it has maintained since March on beer, soft drinks and bottled water distributors who are refusing its extortion demands.

 And the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia -- or AUC -- right-wing gunmen who regularly massacre suspected guerrilla sympathizers, has announced it will soon send 300 fighters to the region to drive off the rebels.

 ``We are in a state of total collapse. This situation has overflowed all the limits,'' said Jorge Cedeño, mayor of the city of Arauca, capital of the state with the same name.

 PROFITABLE VENTURE

 Bombing the pipeline has been a profitable guerrilla business since California-based Occidental Petroleum struck oil in 1985 in nearby Caño Limón and Colombia's
 national ECOPETROL company began operating the pipeline to the Caribbean port of Coveñas.

 At first it was the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, that blackmailed subcontractors. It also ensured its sympathizers received a share of public works contracts and even endorsed candidates for government offices.

 With 800 fighters in the region and 3,500 nationwide, the ELN still holds a large slice of the political power in Arauca. But military control has passed to the
 17,000-member FARC, which nearly doubled its presence here in just the past year from 600 rebels to about 1,100.

 The FARC is now demanding most of the extortion profits, accounting for two-thirds of this year's 110 pipeline bombings -- compared to 96 bombings in 2000 by both groups -- that all but totally shut down operations.

 ``The ELN used to sip from the pipeline through a straw. But now the FARC wants to put the tube to its throat and drink it all up,'' a top Occidental official at the Caño Limón field told The Herald.

 Top Occidental officials in Bogotá have repeatedly said the company ``remains committed to staying in Colombia'' despite the bombing spree. ``But, of course, this hurts us. It hurts everyone, but this company also,'' said a spokesman for the company, whose contract here expires in 2005.

 Poor people like Rosalba Pelayo, 45, whose hometown of Tame, 80 miles southwest of Arauca, has been ruled by the FARC for several years, say they can't understand why the FARC has become so troublesome.

 ``We always coexisted. They were there and we were there, so we had to recognize that fact of life. But now they have become bad boys. Why? Why? I just don't
 understand,'' Pelayo said.

 Sympathizers say the FARC wants to spark a debate on energy issues -- Arauca's need for higher royalties, the right of ``Yankee'' Occidental to exploit national
 resources, the national government's abandonment of the region.

 ``They want to drive this issue into the national stage, put it on the bargaining table,'' said Enrique Pertuz, former Communist Party member of the Arauca state
 legislature.

 LITTLE PROGRESS

 The FARC and President Andrés Pastrana have been engaged in 30 months of so far nearly fruitless peace talks in a Switzerland-sized demilitarized region in southern Colombia that Pastrana ceded the rebels in 1998.

 But most others see it differently. ``This is a fight between two groups of bandits to enrich themselves and gain more power by simple extortion,'' said Castellanos.

 FARC communiqués have vowed the pipeline bombings will not stop until government officials they accuse of pro-ELN leanings resign -- including Cedeño, state Gov. Hector Gallardo and nine of the state's 12 assemblymen.

 The FARC's bombing spree has hobbled the economy of Arauca city, which has expanded from 15,000 to 60,000 residents since 1985 as royalties paid for paved roads, electricity, fancy municipal offices and even a municipal wave pool.

 The city received $5,500 in royalties during May, less than 1 percent of the amount it had expected to receive. The Caño Limón pipeline's income is split 40-40-20
 between Occidental, ECOPETROL and royalties.

 Occidental has laid off 500 contract workers, and businessmen say another 2,000 people have lost their jobs bottling and delivering beer and soft drinks -- now smuggled from Venezuela and sold at twice the usual price.

 The San Vicente hospital closed two of its three surgery rooms, cut outpatient services by half and stopped paying salaries since March, forcing many employees to
 borrow from loan sharks at 10 percent interest per month.

 HOSPITAL CRIPPLED

 The hospital cannot afford to repair its four ambulances -- all broken for months -- and its laboratory has money to perform only 10 of the 50 types of diagnostic tests it once carried out.

 ``Another week or two of this and people will begin dying, if they haven't already,'' said Javier Vargas, hospital director for subsidized services to poor patients.

 Gallardo and Cedeño have asked for negotiations among rebels, the national government and regional officials on economic development programs for the region in return for a rebel promise to stop bombing the pipeline.

 ``The solution is not to armor-plate the tube militarily, but to armor-plate it socially,'' Cedeño told The Herald, arguing that an improved economy would give the region's residents an enticement to help protect the pipeline.

 The presence of the right-wing AUC here has not been confirmed, but that has not stopped the FARC and ELN from executing 40 people in recent months on suspicion of being AUC spies -- mostly recent arrivals with no one to vouch for them.

 Just last month, three door-to-door appliance salesmen who came in from the capital of Bogotá were gunned down by suspected ELN killers in downtown Arauca as they returned to their rented house from dinner.

 ``I am not sure about this announced AUC arrival,'' said Cedeño. ``But people are indeed dying -- dying because of paranoia. And if they do come, God help us all.''

                                    © 2001