From: [C reuters] at [clari.net] (Reuters)
Newsgroups: clari.world.americas.south.misc,clari.news.alcohol+drugs,clari.world.americas.south
Subject: Clash with peasants on frontline of Colombia drug war
Keywords: urgent
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Reuters
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 21:50:03 PDT
Expires: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 21:50:03 PDT
                                         
         BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuter) - At least two people were killed  
and more than 15 injured Friday in a violent clash between 
peasants and government security forces caught on opposite sides 
of one of the frontlines of Colombia's drug war, authorities 
said. 
         They said the violence occurred in Puerto Asis, a small town  
in jungle-covered Putumayo province on Colombia's border with 
Ecuador, where thousands of coca growers are protesting against 
the government's U.S.-backed drug crop eradication program. 
         The town, whose streets have been taken over by an estimated  
15,000 demonstrators, is one of the main focal points of the 
protests involving more than 50,000 people in four southern 
provinces that began two weeks ago. 
         Elver Monge, a spokesman for Putumayo Gov. Jorge  
Fuerbringer, said demonstrators camped near Puerto Asis's 
airport had opened fire ``indiscriminately'' at about 4:30 p.m. 
as a C-130 military transport plane approached the landing 
strip. 
         He said the unprovoked shooting prompted police and army  
troops guarding the airport to open fire on the demonstrators, 
killing at least one and leaving more than eight injured. 
         But witnesses -- including Sidney Cruz, an assistant  
cameraman with Colombia's QAP television news network -- said 
the troops had opened fire on unarmed demonstrators as they 
peacefully sought to occupy the runway. 
         One of the demonstrators, who were armed only with anti-  
government placards and Colombian flags, was standing just 
alongside Cruz when he was killed instantly with a gunshot to 
the head, Cruz said on QAP's evening news program. 
         Hospital and Red Cross officials in Puerto Asis said at  
least two protesters had been killed in the shooting, and QAP 
said the number of injured had risen to more than 30 late 
Friday. 
         The shooting was the second such incident since last Sunday,  
when one other demonstrator was killed in a clash with the 
estimated 2,000 police and military who have been posted in and 
around Puerto Asis. 
         It erupted hours after Interior Minister Horacio Serpa --  
acting head of state until President Ernesto Samper returns from 
a visit to France and Spain on Sunday -- issued a statement in 
the capital flatly rejecting peasant demands for the 
decriminalization of coca growing and an end to the government's 
drug crop eradication program. 
         Serpa described the shooting as ``unfortunate'' in an  
interview with QAP. But he also repeated early statements from 
government and military officials to the effect that the 
demonstrators were being manipulated by leftist guerrillas, who 
maintain a strong presence in the jungle provinces of south and 
southeastern Colombia and specialize in protecting rural drug 
operations. 
         The government is under heavy pressure from the United  
States, which decertified Colombia as a partner in U.S. 
counternarcotics efforts in March, to wipe out tens of thousands 
of acres (hectares) of illicit coca and opium poppy crops this 
year. 
         It has insisted that it will continue spraying illicit crops  
with the herbicide glysophate, destroying what coca growers and 
pickers say is their only way of making a living. But it has 
also insisted that it will help the coca farmers by providing 
them with subsidies to grow alternative crops. 
         In a bizarre alternative to eradication, Samper told  
reporters in Paris after his talks there Thursday with President 
Jacques Chirac that the French leader suggested that industrial 
countries might agree to buy coca leaves from South American 
growers at the same price traffickers pay for them.