FOR COLOMBIANS, FEAR OF WAR RISES

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia -- The soldiers arrived just before dawn
Saturday, filing down the empty streets as roosters crowed and sleepy-eyed
residents peered out their windows.

Hours later came the president, Andres Pastrana, who swept into town from a
nearby airfield to address a throng of shopkeepers, farmers wearing straw
hats and women herding excited children.

"It's good to be here in San Vicente, one of the towns where the peace
process began," Pastrana said. "We're going to continue working with you.
We're going to continue working for peace for all of Colombia."

But there has been little talk of peace in Colombia since last week. On
Wednesday, guerrillas hijacked a commercial turboprop and kidnapped a
prominent senator, prompting an angry Pastrana to break off three years of
fruitless negotiations with Marxist rebels. Early Thursday, he ordered
troops to retake a Switzerland-sized zone surrounding San Vicente that he
had ceded to the guerrillas in hopes of jump-starting talks.

'We're Scared'

Now the talk in Colombia is of war, and nowhere is the talk louder than in
San Vicente.

"We're scared," said Maria Theresa Aguadelo, who runs a bakery. "We're glad
the guerrillas are gone, but having the army here doesn't make us feel much
better. Now the [right-wing] paramilitaries may come. Nobody knows what
will happen next."

Until just days ago, San Vicente was guerrilla territory, a place where the
Marxist members of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
lived openly, strolling the streets in combat fatigues just like the army
soldiers who have replaced them.

The guerrillas fled last week after squads of Colombian military jets and
helicopters thundered through the skies over FARC territory, bombing
suspected rebel encampments, storage depots and landing strips. A force of
elite commandos ferried by U.S.-supplied Black Hawk helicopters landed at a
base just outside San Vicente before dawn Friday, setting the stage for
their occupation of the town of 25,000 and Pastrana's triumphant visit
Saturday.

U.S. Aid To Grow

Before he arrived, troops lowered a rebel flag in the central plaza and
dumped it into a trash can. Printed leaflets were distributed to
townspeople milling in the square. The leaflets read: "The army is here to
guarantee your rights. There is no reason to fear."

The army has met only scattered resistance. There have been minor
skirmishes but no major engagements. In San Vicente and other large towns
in the zone, the FARC simply disappeared into the sweltering haze-covered
hills.

The FARC boasts about 20,000 soldiers, making it Colombia's largest
guerrilla group. The rebel force has grown dramatically in recent years,
earning millions of dollars through its involvement in the country's
thriving drug trade.

Although the United States has given Colombia a $1.3 billion aid package
aimed at fighting drug trafficking, no U.S. troops have been directly
involved in the fighting, serving instead as advisers and trainers. The
Bush administration recently signaled a broadening of support by giving an
additional $98 million to help guard a vital oil pipeline that is a
frequent target for guerrilla bombs.

Washington also signaled a willingness late last week to share more
intelligence information and commit more military advisers to the country,
perhaps a precursor to a major policy shift: declaring the Colombian rebels
as an enemy in the war on terrorism.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday the Bush
administration "will look to do whatever we can within our law to support
the government of Colombia."

While Pastrana's decision to end negotiations and step up the fighting is a
major strategic shift, in some ways things have not changed very much in
the former safe zone, home to 100,000 Colombians.

The day before his visit to San Vicente, a small squad of FARC guerrillas
still controlled a section of the region's main highway, setting up a
roadblock that, their commander admitted, was largely a symbolic gesture of
defiance.

"This is our land, so we aren't leaving," said the guerrilla commander,
known to his compatriots as "Fercho." "The problem is the rich people are
well-organized, but the poor people aren't working together. A lot of
countries are fighting against capitalism. Why don't the poor people of
Colombia fight together against the government?"

Fercho spent a half-hour preaching Marxism to the poor farmers and families
he had stopped at his roadblock. Most looked at the ground and shuffled
their feet during the lecture, then whispered their hatred of the FARC
after he walked away.

It is impossible to know how many FARC sympathizers live in the
impoverished Colombian countryside, although the government insists the
number is tiny. The guerrillas claim to have won the hearts and minds of
the peasants, but reports of their brutal execution of opponents and forced
conscription of rural boys belie the claims.

The rural peasants are whipsawed between the competing groups. Some have
seen their villages suffer back-to-back attacks by the guerrillas and the
paramilitaries, only to be followed by army occupation.

The only certain impact from the end of the peace talks and the escalation
of the fighting is that Colombia's civil war will continue to sow violence
and bloodshed, much of it in the countryside.

At sunset on the day before Pastrana's visit, a dusty farm truck wheeled
into town carrying the bodies of three peasants killed by a military bomb
at a farm several hours' drive from San Vicente.

Wide-eyed residents crowded around the truck, then followed as the bodies
were hauled on blankets through the town's hilltop cemetery to an open-air
morgue nestled among the gravestones.

Family members wept, while mothers shushed children and old ladies shook
their heads, muttering prayers in Spanish.

News of the dead civilians swept through town, creating as much of a stir
as the word that the nation's president was soon to make a visit.

"It's the president's fault," said Jose Lozada, 56, looking down on the
body of his 15-year-old daughter, Kenni. "The army must be more careful.
They must stop the bombing, because the targets are the civilians."