ATTACKS CUT LIFELINE IN COLOMBIA

Oil: Guerrillas are bombing a pipeline responsible for most of a poor
area's income, hobbling its economy and leading to reduced health services.

ARAUCA, Colombia - In a region so rich in oil that it's been called "Saudi
Arauca," 70-year-old Transito Pelayo may die because a public hospital
lacks $10 for blood tests needed to monitor her failing heart.

And that, in one of the ugliest pages of Colombia's bloody war, is because
leftist FARC guerrillas are trying to blackmail two U.S. and Colombian oil
companies by mercilessly bombing an oil pipeline whose royalties cover 92
percent of all the region's government budgets.

"They say they fight for the people, but they are hurting us," said
Pelayo's daughter Rosalba, sobbing as doctors at the San Vicente Hospital
sent her to a much more expensive private clinic for her mother's tests.

FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has bombed the 18-inch
pipeline 110 times since the beginning of the year, shutting it down almost
completely and costing $400 million in lost crude sales income alone.

With royalties shriveled to a trickle, compared with $100 million last
year, state and municipal governments have halted all public works and most
nonemergency procedures at public hospitals and laid off hundreds of workers.

Not to mention the ecological damage caused by the millions of barrels of
crude spilled, leaving huge black splotches around this Everglades-like
waterlogged region of emerald-green savannas on Colombia's eastern border
with Venezuela.

Colombia's army sent in 2,000 reinforcements last month and banned all
highway travel between dusk and dawn, but military and police officers say
it's nearly impossible to totally secure the 483-mile pipeline.

"This is an area totally dominated by the guerrillas," said Maj. Hector
Castellanos, deputy police chief for the region. "If the Americans can't
guard their border with Mexico, how can we guard this tube?"

A bleak outlook

And the future looks bleaker.

FARC has ordered a statewide strike for later this month - to be enforced
with guns and bombs, as well as by expanding the blockade it has maintained
since March on beer, soft drink and bottled water distributors who are
refusing its extortion demands.

And the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia group, right-wing gunmen who
regularly massacre suspected guerrilla sympathizers, has announced it will
soon send 300 fighters to the region to drive off the rebels.

"We are in a state of total collapse. This situation has overflowed all the
limits," said Jorge Cedeno, mayor of the city of Arauca, capital of the
state with the same name.

Profitable business

Bombing the pipeline has been a profitable guerrilla business since
Occidental Petroleum, based in California, struck oil in 1985 in nearby
Cano Limon and Colombia's national ECOPETROL company began operating the
pipeline to the Caribbean port of Covenas.

At first it was the leftist National Liberation Army that blackmailed
subcontractors. The ELN also ensured that its sympathizers received a share
of public works contracts and endorsed candidates for government offices.

With 800 fighters in the region and 3,500 nationwide, the ELN holds a large
slice of the political power in Arauca. But military control has passed to
the 17,000-member FARC, which nearly doubled its presence here in the past
year from 600 rebels to about 1,100.

FARC is demanding most of the extortion profits, accounting for two-thirds
of the 110 pipeline bombings this year - compared with 96 bombings in 2000
by both groups - that all but totally shut down operations.

"The ELN used to sip from the pipeline through a straw. But now the FARC
wants to put the tube to its throat and drink it all up," a top Occidental
official at the Cano Limon field said.

Top Occidental officials in Bogota have repeatedly said the company
"remains committed to staying in Colombia" despite the bombing spree. "But,
of course, this hurts us. It hurts everyone, but this company also," said a
spokesman for the company, whose contract here expires in 2005.

The poor and FARC

Poor people such as Rosalba Pelayo, 45, whose hometown of Tame, 80 miles
southwest of Arauca, has been ruled by FARC for several years, say they
can't understand why FARC has become so troublesome.

"We always coexisted. They were there, and we were there, so we had to
recognize that fact of life. But now they have become bad boys. Why? Why? I
just don't understand," Pelayo said.

Sympathizers say FARC wants to prompt a debate on energy issues - Arauca's
need for higher royalties, the right of "Yankee" Occidental to exploit
national resources and the national government's abandonment of the region.

"They want to drive this issue into the national stage, put it on the
bargaining table," said Enrique Pertuz, a former Communist Party member of
the Arauca state legislature.

Peace talks fruitless

FARC and President Andres Pastrana have been engaged in 30 months of nearly
fruitless peace talks in a demilitarized region the size of Switzerland in
southern Colombia that Pastrana ceded the rebels in 1998.

But most others see it differently. "This is a fight between two groups of
bandits to enrich themselves and gain more power by simple extortion,"
Castellanos said.

FARC communiques have vowed that the pipeline bombings will not stop until
government officials they accuse of pro-ELN leanings resign - including
Cedeno, state Gov. Hector Gallardo and nine of the state's 12 assemblymen.

Economy hindered

FARC's bombing spree has hobbled the economy of Arauca city, which has
expanded from 15,000 to 60,000 residents since 1985 as royalties have paid
for paved roads, electricity, fancy municipal offices and a municipal wave
pool.

The city received $5,500 in royalties during May, less than 1 percent of
the amount it had expected to receive. The Cano Limon pipeline's income is
split 40-40-20 between Occidental, ECOPETROL and royalties.

Occidental has laid off 500 contract workers, and businessmen say 2,000
people have lost their jobs bottling and delivering beer and soft drinks -
now smuggled from Venezuela and sold at twice the usual price.

The San Vicente hospital closed two of its three surgery rooms, cut
outpatient services by half and stopped paying salaries since March,
forcing many employees to borrow from loan sharks at 10 percent interest
per month.

Hospital's budget tight

The hospital cannot afford to repair its four ambulances - broken for
months - and its laboratory has money to perform only 10 of the 50 types of
diagnostic tests it once carried out.

"Another week or two of this and people will begin dying, if they haven't
already," said Javier Vargas, hospital director for subsidized services to
poor patients.

Gallardo and Cedeno have asked for negotiations among rebels, the national
government and regional officials on economic development programs in
return for a rebel promise to stop bombing the pipeline. "The solution is
not to armor-plate the tube militarily, but to armor-plate it socially,"
Cedeno said, arguing that an improved economy would give the region's
residents an enticement to help protect the pipeline.