By Stephen Buckley
Washington Post Foreign Service

TABATINGA, Brazil –– By 9 a.m. on most weekdays, the border here is thick with traffic as Brazilians and Colombians stroll and drive unencumbered across the
frontier to shop, work and attend school. But such free passage has also had a bitter downside for residents of this steamy city: an illicit cross-border drug trade.

Now, with Colombia's renewed determination to strangle drug trafficking and end a four-decade-old civil war, Brazil is fortifying the 1,000-mile frontier to bring relief
to such cities as Tabatinga and to avoid spillover from the Colombian campaign. Brazilian officials say they fear Colombia's efforts could produce a swell of refugees
and bring more drug use and manufacturing and arms trafficking to Brazilian soil. The government also says it fears that Plan Colombia--backed by $1.3 billion from
the United States--could, at some point, draw American soldiers to the border region.

Brazil last week unveiled the cornerstone of its plan to combat the dangers. The three-year, $10-million effort known as Operation Cobra will increase police
presence at border crossings, on the waters between the two countries and in air space covering the frontier.

The plan, which will employ seven federal agencies including the army, also is expected to ensure that waters are not contaminated by chemical runoff from drug
plantations and laboratories closed by the Colombian government.

In addition to Operation Cobra, the government has announced that it could send 6,000 troops to the border in the next six months.

"We can't really predict what will happen with Plan Colombia," said Mauro Sposito, head of Special Units for the federal police force in the state of Amazonas,
where Tabatinga is located. "But we have to be ready for whatever might happen. Our main job really is prevention."

Such proclamations are greeted with weariness and cautious hope in this rundown city of 40,000. Residents say the spillover effects of Colombia's drug trade have
been a reality for them for two decades. With Peru south and west across the Amazon and the Colombian border a five-minute drive north through town, people
here have long felt trapped by the drug trafficking that flourishes in this region.

From Peru comes basic cocaine paste; through Colombia comes the refined drug. Both are bought by dealers in Tabatinga, sold on its streets and transported by
ships from its port. Tabatinga has become so synonymous with illicit drugs that tourists and other international visitors often come through here specifically to find
cocaine, as evidenced by the Greek, Lebanese, and Japanese prisoners being held in the city jail.

The historically lax law enforcement along this triple border region, as it is known, also has proven an irresistible temptation to those seeking to ship drugs out.
Tabatinga residents have been arrested in such places as Germany and the Netherlands after trying to take cocaine over those borders, and Brazilian police say they
routinely seize hundreds of pounds of drugs along the frontier here.

Clandestine flights pass through the region daily, gliding undetected below radar. Sposito said that in the past three years, Brazilian and Colombian authorities have
dismantled 16 jungle landing strips near the border.

Yet residents accuse the Brazilian government of not doing enough to stop the local or international drug trade and its accompanying violence. In July and August, at
least eight people were killed in drug-related shootings, according to police.

"You're afraid in the street, even if you're not involved [with drugs]," said Advani Basto, a traffic officer and community activist. "You don't want to see the wrong
thing because you're afraid that they'll come back and get you the next day."

Police say that is exactly what happened to Joao Gomes Mariano in late August, when the 22-year-old motorcycle mechanic apparently saw a man chase down
another near the plaza of the city's largest Roman Catholic church and blast at least eight bullets into his victim. Police say Mariano agreed to testify in court against
the shooter. But three nights after witnessing the killing, Mariano was shot nine times in the head, neck and chest, then left sprawled in the middle of a dirt road less
than 100 yards from his home.

Sposito said Brazilian police have not focused on Tabatinga's local drug problems because they are "interested in the people who run these organizations, the people
at the top." Other Brazilian officials said the government has not cracked down because of logistical, personnel and cost considerations.

Colombian guerrillas stock up on food, fuel and other necessities in Leticia, just across the border in Colombia and have never used Tabatinga as a base or resting
area, according to officials and residents here. Now, residents worry that guerrillas could seek refuge in Tabatinga and other places on this side of the border once
the Colombian government clamps down on the rebels.

"That possibility certainly exists if the Brazilian government doesn't do anything," said Tabatinga Mayor Raimundo Batista de Souza. "It's what we're all afraid of."

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