SUMMIT ADDRESSES COLOMBIAN STRIFE

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- As Colombia's war widens and becomes more savage,
representatives of the government, two rebel groups and dozens of
humanitarian organizations meet in Central America this week to figure ways
to ease the conflict.

While the three-day conference, which starts Monday evening in San Jose,
Costa Rica, is not expected to produce any breakthroughs to end Colombia's
36-year war, it is unique because it places most of the participants at the
same table.

``We believe this meeting is crucial because it provides the space for civil
society to be heard by all sides, including the rebels, so that a real peace
can be negotiated,'' Robin Kirk of Human Rights Watch said in a telephone
interview Friday from Washington.

The conference is also likely to become a forum for many groups to voice
their opposition to President Andres Pastrana's U.S.-backed anti-narcotics
offensive. The so-called Plan Colombia, being financed with $1.3 billion in
mostly military aid from Washington, is aimed at wiping out cocaine- and
heroin-producing crops from rebels and other armed groups that protect them.

``A modification of Plan Colombia (is needed) because the way is it
envisioned does not help the country,'' said Jorge Rojas of Colombia Peace,
an umbrella group of local non-governmental organizations.

Many NGOs expect the anti-drug offensive, which is expected to be launched
within months after U.S. special forces troops finish training two Colombian
army battalions and U.S. helicopters are deployed, will intensify the war
and force thousands to abandon their homes in southern Colombia, where most
of the world's cocaine is produced.

International human-rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and
representatives from the United Nations also said they would attend the
conference.

Representing the government will be the ministers of labor, of development
and of the environment, who will discuss the social aspects of Plan
Colombia.

Under the plan, Pastrana hopes to boost social programs in the undeveloped
region. However, the hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from
European nations that Colombia hoped to obtain have not materialized, and
the government will be hard-pressed to provide its own financing.

Representatives of the two rebel groups -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN -- said they
would attend the conference. However, a right-wing paramilitary group, the
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, was not invited because it lacks
political status and is not engaged in peace talks with the government.

The conference comes as the government's separate peace talks with the FARC
and ELN have stagnated and as Colombia's war has grown ever more savage in
recent months. Through August of this year, 314 massacres have been carried
out by rebels and the paramilitary forces in which 1,389 people have been
slain.

That was expected to be a focus of the workshops of the conference.

''(We must) immediately begin to agree on respect for human rights and reach
an agreement in this sense,'' said Development Minister Augusto Ramirez.

Also on the agenda: discussions on the status of peace talks, the economic
crisis, the anti-drug war and international aid.