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Though officials in Panama City say that they have it under control, the uncertain situation that confronts people living near the Colombian border has sparked panicky flight and intense political debate. Darien residents who spoke to The Panama News on condition of anonymity say that leftist FARC rebels often hide in the Panamanian jungle when the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitary forces go on offensives on the other side of the border. That's a decades-old practice, they say, one that usually didn't bother Darien and Kuna Yala residents. Now, however, the ACCU paramilitary is pursuing FARC across the border and people in isolated Panamanian communities are afraid that they'll be caught in the crossfire.

Guerrilla intrusions are made easy by the dense jungle and lack of police vigilance in the area. Those same factors also aid cross-border forays by the rebels' ACCU nemeses and ordinary criminal gangs. Heavily forested mountains on the Panamanian side of the frontier have long provided perfect hiding places for drug labs and guerrilla camps, and, in recent years, even coca plantations. When police are able to move into such redoubts, their occupants slip into the jungle and it's then usually impossible to determine whether they were guerrillas, paramilitaries or garden-variety thugs.

There isn't much doubt about the identity of the most recent Colombian intruders. FARC's 56th Front, comprising 200 or more combatants, recently crossed into La Miel, a Kuna Yala village that's not far from the Colombian town of Zapzurro. Almost all of La Miel's inhabitants, most of whom are not Kuna and many of whom are Colombian, fled. However, a number of reporters moved in and met FARC on Panamanian soil. The resulting television and newspaper reports proved embarrassing to National Police Chief José Luis Sosa and Government and Justice Minister Mariela Sagel, both of whom had earlier dismissed reports of large-scale armed intrusions in the area.

The guerrillas told those local residents who did not flee that they do not intend to harm Panamanians living near the border. Given years of experience with FARC's cross-border activities, many of the residents believe the rebels, yet fear that they will be in the way when anti-guerrilla forces come into Panama looking for a fight.

According to Fidel Martínez, the cacique of the Kuna village of Armila, the situation has become so frightening that people in his island community now won't go on shopping trips to Puerto Obaldia alone. He added that since the May 27 abduction and beating of two Armila men by ACCU, people don't go to the community's beach, even in groups, after 4 p.m.

The ACCU visited Armila two years ago, looking for the local sahila and threatening to kill anyone who aided FARC. The sahila and his family fled and the community asked the government in Panama City to improve security along the border, but Martínez said that the plea went unheeded.

Another local official, representante Luciano Sartizo, whose corregimiento includes La Miel, also complained that because police don't pay attention to the community's pleas for help, many of his constituents are afraid to leave their homes. He said that he hasn't been to La Miel during the past year, since the ACCU threatened to kill one of his aides there.

Julio Yao, a noted foreign affairs professor and former diplomat, said that the delicate border situation requires an international solution. He recommended a diplomatic effort among the countries that border Colombia-Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela-to adopt common measures to contain Colombia's chronic civil disorders in that country. He also suggested that President Pérez Balladares and President-elect Moscoso set aside their differences and reach a national foreign policy consensus aimed at protecting border area communities while staying out of Colombia's civil war.

However, Yao rejected Christian Democrat leader Ricardo Arias Calderón's call for OAS intervention, pointing out that the Colombian and Panamanian governments have been holding bilateral talks about the border situation for three months, and advocating similar approaches to Colombia's other neighbors. He added that OAS help isn't needed because Panama is sending in more police to guard sensitive areas.

The professor added that Panama's lack of specialized anti-terrorist police units could lead to unilateral US intervention to put down real or imaginary threats to the Panama Canal's operations. The 1977 canal neutrality agreement allows US intervention to keep the waterway open, and a number of US politicians-all of them Republicans-point to the border situation as a reason why American troops should not withdraw from Panama. A few Panamanian political figures, most notably Arnulfista activist Antonio Domínguez, have also suggested that a continued US military presence would protect Panama against Colombian intruders.

American declarations at the recent Guatemala City OAS summit added to such speculations. The US delegation suggested a multinational anti-drug force and also made references to "narco-guerrillas," and that was taken as a proposal for outside military intervention in and around Colombia. The Bogota government was the first to denounce that idea, and the US State Department quickly issued a clarification, maintaining that it is not the Clinton administration's policy to intervene in Colombia.

Betty Brannan, 6/27: Pero esa situación en Darién ha evolucionado y se ha puesto grave, mientras Estados Unidos tenía presencia militaren el istmo, por lo que cae de su peso que la mera presencia de bases norteamericanas en Panamá no ha hecho nadapor prevenir las incursiones de ''narcoguerrilleros'' colombianos en la jungla panameña. Tampoco es evidente queese problema en Darién sea una amenaza genuina al Canal que se eliminaría con la sola presencia de militaresnorteamericanos en un CMA o en una pista de aterrizaje.Unas bases (o pistas de aterrizaje) en Panamá no servirán de mucho para proteger el Canal -que es indefendible- perosí serían importantes si se militariza la guerra antidrogas en la región.

EPA, 6/28: El director de la Policía Nacional, José Luis Sosa, reveló que 600 nuevos reclutas que se encuentran en entrenamiento serán enviados al área fronteriza con Colombia para evitar la entrada de guerrilleros y paramilitares.

Sosa aseguró que entre estos 600 reclutas existen 250 procedentes del área de Darién, quienes serán designados de manera permanente a esa región para realizar labores de patrullaje y seguridad.