By IPS Correspondents
BOGOTA, Oct 17 2001 (IPS)

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) lifted Tuesday the armed work and transport stoppage it had enforced since Sep 28 in the northeastern department of Arauca, aimed at curbing the advance of rightist paramilitary forces in the region.

The “Guadalupe Salcedo” 10th column of the FARC issued the order to lift the armed strike, which cut off economic activity and transport – even of ambulances – and caused over five million dollars in economic losses.

The 15,000 to 17,000-strong insurgent group issued a statement declaring that the freeze on activity “made it clear that army troops dress and act as paramilitaries in Arauca.”

Medical and food supplies ran out a few days ago in Arauca, a 23,000-square kilometre oil-producing department on the Venezuelan border, with a total population of more than 300,000.

“No one can move, and whoever does so will pay a high cost,” ordered FARC commander Rafael. The guerrillas made good on their threat. On Oct 8 they killed Ruben Castillo, a taxi driver who according to the rebels had violated the restrictions.

Arauca has a long history of violence, the catalyst for which has been oil. But the violence intensified after the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) arrived in the region last month. A local weekly, El Espectador, reported that the district had the largest number of weapons per inhabitant in this war-torn South American country of 40 million.

In the 1980s, the National Liberation Army (ELN) – Colombia’s second-largest insurgent group, with roughly 5,000 members – was the first irregular armed force to set up shop in Arauca. It financed itself at the time by extorting Mannesmann, the multinational that built the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline, the country’s biggest.

The FARC did not arrive until later. The rebel group imposed its laws by fire and sword, and squeezed out the “elenos” (the ELN rebels), with the aim of controlling local politics and oil resources. In the last elections in the region, the FARC ordered people not to vote, while the ELN urged voters to turn out.

The first AUC incursion into the area occurred in the municipality of Tame on Sep 6, when around 200 armed men threatened to kill anyone who had links to the guerrillas or had cooperated in attacks on the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline.

The ELN has bombed the pipeline 415 times since 1986, causing losses of over 254 million dollars, according to the state-run company Ecopetrol.

Five months ago, after 133 bombings of the pipeline staged since January, the California-based oil giant Occidental Petroleum decided to stop pumping oil. So far, losses have climbed to 30 million dollars. Arauca normally produces 105,000 barrels a day.

The arrival of the paramilitaries unleashed a wave of murders of political leaders and social activists. Several of the corpses carried signs reading “he died because he was a guerrilla, and there are more deaths to come.”

Two of the victims were lawmakers Octavio Sarmiento and Alfredo Colmenares, who were shot down in the first week of October.

Sarmiento was a leader of the Patriotic Union, a leftist movement born of the peace agreements signed in 1984 by the government and the FARC. Colmenares, of the opposition Liberal Party, was the first governor elected by popular vote in Arauca. He was criticised for financing gargantuan projects.

Over the weekend, AUC claimed responsibility for the two murders, on its web page. The legislators who were killed were “known bandits,” according to the paramilitaries, who claimed Sarmiento backed the FARC and Colmenares supported the ELN.

“These two evildoers” submitted the department of Arauca to “high rates of corruption, in alliance with the guerrillas,” said the paramilitary umbrella organisation.

However, Arauca Governor Héctor Gallardo said it was never proven that public money in the department fell into the hands of the rebels, despite the numerous investigations carried out.

Independent parliamentary Deputy Gustavo Petro told IPS that “besides the traditional tendency of the war in Colombia to win terrain, in the case of Arauca there is a new element: the paramilitary struggle for control over the border with Venezuela.”

That interest is linked to the budding land reform effort in Venezuela, said Petro. “The paramilitaries can cross over the border with the support of the right, and they will sink our neighbouring country in blood to block agrarian reform,” he added.

The local leadership of the Communist Party said 1,000 army troops had entered Arauca.

Albeiro Vanegas, a Liberal Party parliamentary deputy representing Arauca, warned that “an unprecedented massacre” would take place in the department if the government failed to take urgent measures to crack down on AUC.

The paramilitaries set up daily checkpoints on the highway running between Tame and Puerto Rondón without the army ever showing up, said Vanegas.

AUC has killed 145 people in massacres and selective assassinations over the past two weeks.

“To accept the ‘paras’ (paramilitaries) as ‘saviours’ is like raising crows that will poke out our eyes later,” warned a Monday editorial in the daily El Tiempo, the only paper with nationwide circulation.

“Even more serious than their growth is the backing that the paramilitary forces are gaining in important social sectors,” added El Tiempo.

Since Arauca became a separate department 10 years ago, 25 political leaders have been murdered there.

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