COLOMBIAN REBELS SAID TO SEIZE 10 FOREIGN OIL WORKERS

BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 12 - Members of the largest guerrilla group in Colombia
kidnapped five American and five other foreign oil workers today in the
Amazon region of Ecuador and hijacked a helicopter to take them across the
Colombian border into territory they control, the Ecuadorean government said.

The group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has
increasingly operated across Colombia's borders in recent months. The
kidnapping today was the most brazen effort in what appears to be a
campaign to instill fear in Colombia's neighbors that a planned offensive
in southern Colombia in the coming months, backed by the United States,
will spread the conflict.

The kidnapping occurred hours before President Andres Pastrana of Colombia
arrived in Argentina as part of a South American tour intended to increase
regional support for his efforts to use greater military power to force two
guerrilla groups to make concessions in peace talks. The seizure also
seemed to bolster rebel assertions that United States military officials
who arrive to train Colombian troops could be expected to be targets.

"The FARC has claimed responsibility for the hostage taking in retaliation
for Plan Colombia," Vice President Pedro Pinto of Ecuador told reporters,
referring to a $7.5 billion Colombian anti-drug plan that includes 60
United States military helicopters and American training for a new
Colombian army brigade to help eradicate coca fields in two southern
Colombian provinces that the FARC occupies. The plan is also financed by
European governments and international agencies.

"The FARC dress like civilians and cross the border and do things like
this," Mr. Pinto said.

He told a radio station that the guerrillas captured the 11 hostages -
including two French workers, an Argentine, a Chilean, a New Zealander and
one Ecuadorean - at 4 a.m. local time at an oil workers' camp near Pompeya
and whisked them away in a Super Puma helicopter owned by an Ecuadorean
service company. The hostages work for two service companies contracted by
Repsol-YPF, a Spanish-Argentine oil company, to perform geological surveys.

A State Department official said the Ecuadorean had been kidnapped but
quickly released. "We don't know much," the official said. "They were put
in a helicopter - one of the captives is a pilot - and flown away. And we
don't know where. But it is likely they took them to Colombia. We have to
find out where they took them before we can do anything."

The official declined to identify the hostages.

A senior Clinton administration official said: "There have been incidents
like this in northern Ecuador before where people have been kidnapped. It
does bring up the issue of security for workers down there. It is a real
concern."

The kidnapping occurred 47 miles south of the border, suggesting that the
rebels have the capacity to operate deep inside Ecuador.

Spokesmen at Repsol-YPF in Buenos Aires said they were trying to confirm
the reports.

United States military officials recently warned that the FARC has made
contact with and has influenced an Indian movement in Ecuador that helped
overthrow a democratically elected president in Quito this year.

The attack on foreign oil operations was carried out at a time the
oil-based Ecuadorean economy is stumbling despite high oil prices. Recently
the government asked Washington for increased aid to help feed and shelter
an increasing number of Colombian refugees who are crossing the border to
escape the fighting.

Ecuador borders areas of Colombia with some of the highest concentrations
of coca fields anywhere in South America, including the Putumayo Province,
where American and Colombian military officials plan to focus an extensive
eradication effort. The officials hope that eradicating the coca in
Putumayo and adjacent Caqueta Province will deny the FARC valuable
resources to finance their war.

The FARC, the strongest, oldest and richest guerrilla group in Latin
America, also makes a habit of kidnapping foreigners as well as Colombians
to extract exorbitant payoffs. It has stepped up its activities, attacking
one police station after another in the countryside since the United States
Congress passed a $1.3 billion aid package four months ago.

The FARC does not hold other American hostages, although three American
missionaries seized three years ago are missing and widely believed to be dead.