COLOMBIAN SUPPORT FOR FORCE GROWS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- With peace talks fizzling and Colombia's armed forces
showing sudden promise on the battlefield, support is growing here for
using military force to bring leftist insurgents to their knees.

The shift could foreshadow an intensification of this Colombia's 37-year
guerrilla war, and comes as the Bush administration debates how best to aid
a troubled neighbor without getting sucked into the conflict.

A hardening of attitudes is apparent among many Colombians, including
business leaders and top candidates in next year's presidential elections.
They accuse the guerrillas of intransigence and question President Andres
Pastrana's largesse in handing the nation's largest rebel group a huge
chunk of territory as an incentive to negotiate.

A high-level U.S. delegation arriving Wednesday -- the first since
President Bush took office -- will meet with Pastrana as part of a review
of U.S. policy in Colombia.

U.S. aid is currently earmarked mostly for counternarcotics operations. The
country's largest rebel group -- the 16,000-strong Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC -- taxes and protects the cocaine trade to fund
its insurgency, making the rebels a target for some of the U.S. military
assistance.

The Bush administration has not indicated whether, or how, it might change
Washington's role in Colombia. But it underscored that Colombia is high on
its agenda by announcing that Secretary of State Colin Powell would be
visiting here on Sept. 11-12.

Arriving Wednesday in Bogota are the Undersecretary of State for Political
Affairs Marc Grossman; the National Security Council's Latin America
adviser, John Maisto; and Gen. Peter Pace, the commander of U.S. military
forces in Latin America.

Recent military successes following years of humiliation at the hands of
the FARC are boosting the armed forces' morale, and the country appears to
be preparing for things to get worse before there is peace.

Generals were triumphant during a large offensive last week in which the
military claims it killed dozens of rebels while routing a column of more
than 1,000 FARC fighters who left the safe haven to attack towns in the
coca-growing south.

In an interview published Sunday, the commander of the army, Gen. Jorge
Mora, predicted there would be intensified fighting over the next two to
three years before the military gains the upper hand and forces the rebels
to capitulate.

"Today's army is capable of winning the war," Mora told the newsmagazine
Semana.

The Trade Group Council, an umbrella group of 15 Colombian private-sector
associations, held dinners and other events to honor the armed forces in
cities around the country Tuesday and said it would lobby for a larger
defense budget.

A tougher military will strengthen the peace process, council president
Sabas Pretelt was quoted as saying in Tuesday's El Tiempo newspaper.

Pastrana generated high hopes when he was elected three years ago on peace
platform. But talks with the FARC have yielded almost no advances, while
evidence mounts that the rebels have used their sanctuary for military
preparations.

The captures here this month of three suspected Irish Republican Army
members believed to have given explosives training to the FARC has raised
fears of an urban guerrilla bombing campaign -- expanding what has been a
largely rural war.

Pastrana says he remains committed to the peace process and hopes for a
possible cease-fire before he leaves office next year. However, he recently
signed legislation broadening the military's powers to carry out the war
and has overseen a near-doubling in the number of professional soldiers.

Washington is providing helicopters and troop training under last year's
$1.3 billion aid plan.

Daniel Garcia Pena, an anti-war activist and former government peace envoy
called the growing warlike attitudes by both the military and the rebels
"very worrisome."

"When one side looks to strengthen itself the other side does too, and all
that happens is the war escalates," he said.