U.S. AID TO COLOMBIA PROMPTS GUERRILLAS TO STEP UP WAR EFFORTS

VEGALARGA, Colombia -- It was almost dusk when more than 400 rebels, armed
for invasion, arrived here in plainclothes.

Booms erupted from the mountains that pinch the edge of town and offer the
illusion of safety. Mudbrick houses exploded as the rebels' crude mortars
rained from the hills. Windows blew out.

Next came bursts from AK-47s followed by explosions of grenades tossed into
the heart of the town. The town's few cops, surrounded and pinned in, fired
back and hunkered down in the police station for a long night. Townsfolk
scurried down the hill as bullets skipped at their feet.

"It was horrible," said Melva Perez, a 29-year resident, remembering the
14-hour-long rebel attack in July. She survived by hiding under a bed in a
neighbor's house outside the town, which is only 20 miles from
rebel-controlled territory.

"There were loud explosions throughout the night," she said. "The guerrillas
hid themselves in people's homes and were shooting. It went on until the
next morning. I thought they would never leave."

As the Colombian military prepares an onslaught against drugs, the rebels
who control the illicit trade are fighting back. Convinced that a U.S. aid
package of $1.3 billion is the start of an offensive against them, rebels
have attacked several dozen isolated towns this year, leaving entire blocks
in rubble and hundreds homeless.

The rebel strategy seems to be to show Colombians that they are mightier
than the Colombian police and army, who have suffered embarrassing defeats
at their hands. The rebels vow that if the government goes ahead with plans
to fumigate the coca fields, federal forces will suffer stinging defeats.

At least 57 police officers have been killed in rebel attacks in recent
months in this region of lawlessness. At least 560 officers and soldiers are
being held hostage -- most in the rebel zone the size of Switzerland where
the Colombian forces dare not set foot.

Overwhelmed police forces have abandoned police stations in several areas,
leaving residents to defend themselves by begging the rebels to go easy on
them.

And the rebels swear that their backlash is just the beginning. If, in the
next few years, the U.S. delivers 60 helicopters as promised and Colombian
forces attack rebel outposts defending drug labs, the guerrillas vow swift,
bloody retaliation.

Colombian military and American intelligence reports say that thousands of
guerrillas are training in the jungles of south Colombia to repel the
Colombian army and police.

Battle ready

More than 17,000 rebels -- who go by the Spanish acronym FARC -- are battle
ready and are staging raids throughout the country.

For much of the last 40 years, the leftist rebels with Marxist roots have
caused upheaval in Colombia. In their early incarnation, their cause was an
ideological desire to control Colombia. But in recent years, the FARC has
transformed into the armed protectors of the drug trade, which supplies 80
percent of the world's cocaine and much of the opium.

Now the rebels are preparing to defend their lucrative business at any
price.

Through routes from the Middle East to South America, the rebels are
shopping for sophisticated weapons and are stockpiling huge caches capable
of shooting down a $13 million, U.S.-made chopper with a single blow.

Rebels vow to unleash far more potent attacks than they have in the past to
repel the government offensive. "They will force us to show a new face,"
Andres Paris, a guerrilla commander, said at rebel headquarters in a
territory they already control. So far, the revealed strategy of the rebels
is simply to produce terror.

>From land ceded to them by the government in late 1999, the guerrillas have
staged attacks into mountainous, government-controlled towns.

Since June, quiet villages just miles from the rebels' haven have come under
siege, sometimes for days. The guerrillas say they are aiming to roust the
Colombian police and army from the towns. But innocent people are caught in
the middle.

As Colombians watch TV footage of the deadly raids, they are growing
increasingly outraged. Residents -- mostly poor peasants -- cannot
comprehend why the rebels are using them for targets.

"Their aim is to kill innocent people and get public authority," said Rafael
Cely Vega, the regional police commander whose squads are under almost daily
siege. "What we don't understand is why they attack the civilian
population."

A table in the conference room at the police headquarters in the central
plateau city of Neiva, a regional capital, is decorated with grim newspaper
clippings of the rebels' recent attacks. Police have prepared a video
presentation with facts, figures, photos and stark footage of the
rebel-created carnage.

Just this summer:

In one town, the wife and two children of a police agent were killed in a
raid. In another hamlet, 14 police officers were killed in fighting. In a
third community, bone-weary officers, their faces bloodied, described how
they fended off rebels for nearly a day. And outside a fourth enclave,
rebels ambushed a bus thinking it was a military vehicle. Eight people were
wounded and six killed -- most of them children.

In all, hundreds of victims were killed, wounded or left homeless. Police
stations like the one here are riddled with bullets and shrapnel. In other
towns, sandbags are stacked around police headquarters for protection.

Police presence has been modestly increased in some areas. Here, there are
two dozen officers, compared to less than a dozen before the July 12 rebel
assault. "We always have to be on guard," said an edgy young police
commander as he stood outside the bunkered police headquarters here. "We
hear shots through the night from the mountains. You always sleep with one
eye open."

Police and the townspeople have an uneasy relationship with each other that
is based on suspicion more than trust. In 1998, during fierce fighting
between guerrillas and government forces, the town was in the hands of
rebels for more than six months.

As part of a government-brokered peace plan, the rebels pulled out of
Vegalarga and into nearby territory that stretches toward the Amazon jungle.

But rebel informers continue to live here, police say, and guerrillas
sometimes walk boldly down the town's main street disguised as ordinary
people.

"We know they are watching us," the police commander said.

Police officials admit they are overwhelmed by the surprise invasions that
usually come just after sunset. When police try to respond with
reinforcements, rebels blow up bridges so vehicles cannot reach the
fighting. If police arrive by air, rebels are ready to ambush them as they
jump off choppers.

"It is very difficult to move rapidly when they dynamite the roads," Cely
said.

In this sleepy village of a few hundred people, a two-hour drive over
pocked, dirt roads from Neiva, many residents feel abandoned by Colombian
leaders.

At least a dozen homes were destroyed in the rebel attack in July.
Guerrillas use homemade bombs -- gas cylinders filled with dynamite and
other explosive materials -- that are set off from makeshift mortar
launchers.

The bombs are potent but are not accurate. In the town's center, the police
station is one of the few structures still standing. But a school and
several houses nearby are rubble because they missed the mark of the police
station.

Sofia Gonzalez, a field hand, was picking crops when the rebels descended on
the town. She returned the next morning to find her house in ruins.

"That's where I slept," she said, pointing to the remains of her house. "If
I would have been in bed, they wouldn't have found me."

Gonzalez cried for eight days until bitterness replaced her grief.

Civilians suffer

After the rebel onslaught, government officials toured the town and promised
money for rebuilding. But not one peso of government relief has reached the
region where it will take millions of dollars to rebuild churches, schools,
and houses. Police have taken to rebuilding some destroyed police garrisons
by hand and with makeshift tools and a patchwork of materials.

Gonzalez, who has four adult children, makes from $1,000 to $5,000 annually
depending on the harvest. It would take four years of salary to rebuild her
house.

"The war is being waged against the wrong people," said Gonzales, who has no
savings and is living with neighbors. "They (the rebels) are hitting
defenseless, unarmed civilians."

Rebel leaders say that terrorizing the populace is not their aim. They blame
the Colombian military for using residents as shields to protect the police
stations.

"We are sorry that civilians have to die in our mission," said Paris, the
rebel leader. "But these are military targets we are going after."

But after seeing the dismal performance of the army and police in recent
months, residents can't help but wonder how well Colombian forces will do
against the rebels when they begin a major offensive some 200 miles to the
south in the coca growing regions. Colombian officials promise that $1.3
billion in U.S. aid will provide a needed boost of military expertise and 60
new helicopters to fight the rebels and drugs. They hope a federal offensive
will force the rebels to the negotiating table.

But the rebels do not seem in the mood for concession.

In the rebels' 40-year battle with the government, "They haven't been able
to finish us off," Paris said. "We come back stronger. History will repeat
itself."