RIGHTIST SQUADS IN COLOMBIA BEATING THE REBELS

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 4 They began as a gang of thugs backed by the
once-powerful Columbian drug cartels. But when the guerrilla war
intensified, they evolved into quasi-independent right-wing paramilitary
squads that killed peasants suspected of supporting Colombia's leftist
rebels.

Now the paramilitary forces have demonstrated with alarming clarity that
they have become something else again: an army of combat-ready fighters that
is directly engaging guerrillas and winning wide swaths of territory.

The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, as the paramilitary groups are
known formally, or A.U.C. by the Spanish initials, are also gaining an
important degree of popular support from Colombia's middle class, say
experts on the conflict and government officials here and in the United
States.

As the government tries to restart frozen peace talks this week, the
right-wing militias may well have a role in the process.

With 11,000 fighters, nearly double what they boasted a few years ago, and
the backing of landowners, businessmen and coca growers, the paramilitary
forces have beaten guerrillas on their own turf.

Through intimidation, massacres and, increasingly, direct confrontations,
the militias have tightened their hold on the northern provinces of
Antioquia, Bolivar and Cordoba and expanded into other regions, especially
the coca-growing strongholds in the south.

They have also thrust themselves into the roiling world of Colombian
politics, upsetting peace negotiations between President Andres Pastrana's
administration and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the
nation's largest rebel group.

Through savvy public relations efforts by its straight-talking leader,
Carlos Castano, and intimidation aimed at Colombia's establishment - notably
the kidnapping of seven congressmen in October in a successful attempt to
broker a meeting with a top government official - the paramilitary fighters
have shown a determination to be heard.

Military success is widely believed to be strengthening Mr. Castano's hand
in his quest for political recognition. Achieving military victory would
make it more difficult for the government to prosecute him and other
paramilitary leaders for war crimes if the conflict comes to an end. For the
first six months of this year, the government's ombudsman has reported that
512 unarmed civilians were killed by paramilitary gunmen, compared with 120
killed by guerrillas.

Despite criticism from human rights groups, the public relations drive
appears to be working. A large group of congressmen and several influential
Colombians are publicly suggesting that the paramilitary units should have a
role in the peace talks, a possibility that others say could produce years
of conflict because of rebel opposition.

The debate comes as Colombia prepares to spend $1.1 billion in mostly
military aid from the United States and other Western allies to curtail coca
production in prime coca-growing regions like Putumayo Province in the
south, an area where guerrillas and the paramilitary units have been
battling for control.

"They are an unquestioned reality," said Senator Miguel Pinedo, who was
among those kidnapped in October. "There's going to have to be a moment when
they will have to be a part of the negotiating table, either independently
or together with the rebels, but they have to be a part of it."

Phillip Chicola, director of Andean affairs for the United States State
Department, agreed recently in a radio interview here. The paramilitary
forces "are at some moment going to have to be part of a process," he said,
"and I think the government and Colombian society are going to have to
decide how to manage this issue."

Their growth can be attributed in part to the failure by the Pastrana
administration to advance the peace effort in the last two years. The
government is trying to resume talks before Thursday, when Mr. Pastrana must
decide whether to reclaim by force the Switzerland-sized swath of territory
ceded to the FARC guerrillas two years ago to lure them to the peace table.
The talks have sputtered, but the guerrillas control the land.

Max Alberto Morales, who has served as an intermediary between the
government and Mr. Castano, the paramilitary leader, said that Mr. Castano
had been prepared to allow the peace talks with the FARC to proceed but that
Mr. Castano had become concerned when the talks stalled, the FARC took
control of a major chunk of territory and guerrilla violence continued.

"We had hope for a year that the peace process would get rolling, but what
happened in that year is kidnappings became more common, roadblocks
increased, they began to hijack airplanes and people were taken from
churches," Mr. Morales said. "I think that all this touched the hearts of
Colombians, and they said, `We won't take this anymore.' For that reason the
people in this country love Castano so much."

Beloved or not, Mr. Castano has been quick to take advantage of the shifting
moods in Colombian society.

In two highly emotional televised interviews last spring, he cast himself as
a protector not of the large landowning class that has helped finance the
paramilitary forces, but rather of middle-class workers fearful of
kidnappings. "The ones who have no one to defend them are the middle
classes," Mr. Castano said. "The Self-Defense Forces are looking out for the
interests of the middle class."

After the interviews, a poll in El Tiempo, Colombia's most respected
newspaper, showed that 38 percent of those questioned said their image of
Mr. Castano had improved. Seventy-two percent said the paramilitary forces
should take part in the peace talks.

"Castano is the only Colombian who has the nerve to attack the guerrillas,
and that makes him the good guy," said Luis Jaime Cordoba, a Bogota teacher.

Mario Fernando Hurtado, a geographer, said he had come to agree with Mr.
Castano's logic after watching him on television. "He knows the reality of
the problems of the country, and though he justifies his actions with force,
he's convincing in his arguments," he said. "I'm not in accordance with many
of his methods, but in this country they're necessary, because having a
peace dialogue with the guerrillas when they're not interested doesn't make
sense."

Colombia is a poor country, but its cities have large middle-class
communities that feel little kinship or connection to the peasant farmers in
the countryside who are most often the victims of the paramilitary units'
violence. With Colombia's unsteady political situation and a harsh economic
downturn worsening, the vacuum was open for Mr. Castano to step in.

"Against this backdrop of deepening chaos and the absolute lack of the rule
of law, then a charismatic and articulate individual has risen to the level
of leadership," said Bruce Bagley, an expert on the conflict at the
University of Miami who is worried about a deepening conflict if the
paramilitary forces gain political support.

"Carlos Castano, the fixture, the man, has found the right time for his
leadership to emerge as powerful and important in Colombia," he said. "He
has resonance among important sectors in Colombian society."

Mr. Castano has also expanded his forces' reach into sparsely populated
regions where they had only occasionally operated in the past, notably
Putumayo Province along the Ecuadorian border.

"It's remarkable, from a military perspective, that he's been able to push
into new areas without any concern about his rear flanks," said Robin Kirk,
who has interviewed Mr. Castano for her work as the Colombia researcher for
Human Rights Watch.

"He's able to project a force way beyond his base of strength, which is
northern Colombia, and he has the E.L.N. on the ropes, and that is very
new," she said, referring to the National Liberation Army, the
second-largest leftist guerrilla group, by its Spanish initials.

In Putumayo, the paramilitary fighters have so unnerved the FARC in a series
of brutal entanglements since September that the rebels responded by closing
off the province's roads.

The FARC's tactics have created an embarrassing crisis for the Pastrana
administration, because it is in Putumayo that much of Plan Colombia, a
multibillion-dollar effort backed by the United States to root out drug
trafficking, is focused.

Mr. Castano's efforts to push deep into Putumayo are aimed at controlling
the region's lucrative coca production. It remains unclear if the
paramilitary forces have been able to gain the upper hand in the conflict
there, but a top State Department official said intelligence reports showed
that "at a minimum they've held their own against men who've had a full run
of the place."

Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups insist that the
paramilitary forces should not be allowed into peace talks until the
government fully investigates their connections to the military, which the
rights groups accuse of having provided munitions and tactical support to
the paramilitary units. A Human Rights Watch report in February showed that
half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units had links to paramilitary
units.

"They have to disappear as an armed force and submit themselves to justice,"
said Senator Jaime Dussan, an outspoken opponent of including the
paramilitary units in the talks. "How can we give amnesty to those who have
killed, those who have massacred?"

Still, even among those who have aggressively pushed for the government to
rein in the paramilitary fighters, there is a sense that it may be too late,
that the right-wing forces have grown so large and independent that they
cannot easily be disbanded.

"Today, the paramilitaries have grown too much," said German Martinez, the
legal officer in Puerto Asis who has investigated paramilitary killings in
Putumayo. "It is a monster created by the state, but now it's at the point
where it's free of the state. It's a lion that the state controlled, but it
has freed itself, broken away."