VIOLENCE SURGES ACROSS COLOMBIA ON EVE OF CLINTON TRIP

CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Communist rebels battled troops for control
of a major highway on Tuesday and set off bombs outside three banks while
masked students clashed with riot police in a wave of violence across
Colombia timed to protest against a visit by President Clinton.

Clinton is due to arrive in the Caribbean port of Cartagena Wednesday, the
first U.S. president in a decade to come to this Andean nation ravaged by a
long-running guerrilla war that has cost 35,000 lives in the last 10 years.

Tuesday's skirmishes were centered in and around the country's three main
cities, including the capital Bogota, well away from Cartagena which is
being tightly guarded by 5,000 police and soldiers, helicopters and warships
during Clinton's day-long trip.

In the lead up to the visit, Colombia's main rebel forces and the main labor
organizations condemned a recently-approved U.S. package of $1.3 billion in
mostly military aid to help Colombia fight drugs and guerrillas.

They say the assistance is a sign of growing U.S. intervention in Colombia
and fear it will inflame the three-decade-old conflict and could draw
Washington into a Vietnam-style quagmire.

The first clash erupted before dawn Tuesday as Revolutionary Armed 46orces
of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas attacked the town of Guayabetal, about 37
miles (60 km) east of the capital Bogota on the main route to the oil-rich
and agricultural eastern plains.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but fighting was still raging
at midday and the highway was closed to all traffic.

``There was an attack by FARC guerrillas who were trying to blockade the
highway but soldiers arrived and prevented that from happening,'' an army
spokesman said.

Bombs, Student Protests

In southwest Cali, Colombia's second largest city, a FARC urban guerrilla
unit set off small bombs outside three banks, causing widespread damage but
no injuries, a police spokesman said.

Local media reported the FARC, Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel
army, had claimed responsibility for the blasts in pamphlets left at the
scene in which the rebels protested U.S. aid to Colombia.

In a separate incident in the industrial hub of Medellin, the country's
third largest city, some 40 students wearing ski masks or bandannas across
their faces fought running battles with riot police outside the University
of Antioquia.

Police fired water cannon and tear gas as the students lobbed rocks, molotov
cocktails and chanted ``Clinton... Go home!'' according to a Reuters
photographer at the scene.

Local media also reported another clash between National Liberation Army
(ELN) rebels and security forces on a highway near the town of Plato, in
northern Magdalena province. There was no immediate official confirmation of
the incident.

Like the larger FARC, the ELN is also fiercely opposed to Clinton's visit
and mushrooming U.S. aid for the Colombian government. The two groups have a
combined combat force of some 22,000 fighters and are estimated to control
up to half the country.

In a communique obtained by Reuters earlier this week, ELN fighters said
they would step up attacks against the country's second largest oil field,
operated by U.S. multinational Occidental Petroleum Corporation.

Production at the field has been paralyzed for the last three weeks after
rebels repeatedly bombed the pipeline that pumps crude from the 105,000
barrel per day field.

In a separate communique issued this week by the FARC and entitled ``Clinton
Go Home!'' the rebels said: ``Clinton does not come in peace...He is coming
to launch (the U.S. aid package) which more than a counterinsurgency plan,
is a plan drawn up in line with imperial geopolitics.''