Putumayo’s tense wait for the arrival of Plan Colombia
Bill Clinton’s visit to Colombia later this month will seal American backing for a plan to tackle drugs and guerrillas in its roughest area. But will it work?
PUERTO ASIS, a bustling town of some 80,000 people in the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, is a prosperous place by the standards of Colombia's southern lowlands, though all but its more important streets are unpaved. It is also a place that lives on its nerves. Though both the army and the police have bases in the town, right-wing paramilitaries walk around openly, in civilian clothes but with guns in their belts. In the surrounding jungle, power lies with the FARC guerrillas. And the whole area has become the most-watched front in Colombia's irregular wars.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Putumayo’s tense wait for the arrival of Plan Colombia”
From the August 19th 2000 edition
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