COLOMBIA POLICE FACING NEW ROLE IN GUERRILLA WAR

But Residents Weighing Security Against Dangers Of Rebel Magnets

COLOMBIA -- The tension and fear were unmistakable among the two dozen
National Police agents deployed in this isolated town as they sifted
through mounds of rubble left by a recent guerrilla attack.

"We're supposed to be a force that people come to with problems like, 'My
child is missing,' or 'I can't find my dog,'" said police Agent Alfonso
Parra as he rested an arm on his Galil assault rifle. "We shouldn't be the
ones they come to with, 'There's a guerrilla in front of my house.'"

But the circumstances of Colombia's intensifying internal war have
converted policemen such as Mr. Parra into the country's first line of
defense against an increasingly brutal onslaught by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Many in Colombia are questioning whether the
government is properly training and supporting its police officers for a
military role they were never meant to have.

The 17,000-member FARC, bolstered by millions of dollars in drug money and
sheltered by a Switzerland-size safe haven only 20 miles from the town of
Colombia, has spent the last month flexing its military muscle by attacking
police stations and leveling civilian buildings with homemade bombs.

Many believe that the offensive is the rebels' answer to a $1.3 billion
package of mostly military aid that the Clinton administration approved for
Colombia in July.

Since the aid package was approved, the FARC has marched out of its safe
haven to hammer towns such as Colombia, Algeciras, Santa Maria, Vega Larga,
Tello, Roncesvalles and Alpujarra with unusual ferocity. At least 36 police
officers have been killed in combat since July AD nearly a third of the
total for this year. Hundreds of others have been taken prisoner.

The attacks, each involving up to 800 rebel fighters, prompted President
Andres Pastrana earlier this month to threaten a punishing government
response AD in spite of the 18-month-old peace process that, so far, has
been his top priority.

"This is not war. This is sadism. There are no words sufficient to condemn
the terrible acts of barbarity committed by the guerrillas against police
and civilians," Mr. Pastrana said after an assault that left 14 policemen
dead in the town of Arboleda. "There will be an iron fist for those who
destroy the country."

In the town of Colombia, two churches, three schools and 10 houses lay in
ruins from a July 12 rebel assault. The Aquarius discotheque was flattened
by bombs made from gas canisters filled with dynamite and hurled from
nearby streets using makeshift mortar launchers. Much of the damage
appeared to have been inflicted by errant mortars aimed at the police station.

Incredibly, none of the town's 22 policemen were killed as they fended off
hundreds of guerrillas during the nine-hour siege. Six civilians were
killed, including the wife and two sons of a police agent who had left them
alone at home so he could help defend the town.

The police station was left so riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel that
parts of it will have to be torn down and rebuilt. In the meantime, police
spend their days crouched behind sandbags or mixing concrete outside to
rebuild their station.

"We're just waiting for the next attack to begin," Agent Parra said with a
shrug.

Police stations such as the one in Colombia are taking on the appearance of
military forts, with sandbag bunkers, fortified concrete barriers with gun
turrets, and secret tunnels that give police greater maneuverability during
guerrilla attacks.

Their food consists of U.S.-supplied, pre-packaged Meals-Ready to Eat, the
field rations used by U.S. troops during combat deployments. Some police
agents say they have received counterinsurgency training from U.S. troops
stationed in the country.

The town of Colombia, just like the nation that shares its name, finds
itself immersed in an unconventional and unpredictable guerrilla war that
seems to abide by no rules and honor no boundaries. And the police are
caught square in the middle.

Critics say Colombia runs the risk of militarizing its National Police
force the way that El Salvador did with its national Treasury Police during
its 1980s war against leftist insurgents. The Treasury Police ultimately
became one of the most feared groups in the country and was blamed by
international human rights groups for widespread atrocities.

"People ask me all the time if I see any similarities between Colombia and
El Salvador," said Carlos Salinas, Latin America policy director for the
human rights group Amnesty International. "I answerSimilarities? No. This
is El Salvador."

Continuing to press

Amnesty, along with other groups, continues to press the Colombian
government to abide by international conventions as well as the nation's
constitution, which oblige the government to extend police security to all
citizens. Without that security, Mr. Salinas said, civilians are vulnerable
to attack by various insurgent groups. At the same time, he acknowledged
that international law recognizes the legitimacy of guerrilla attacks on
police as the "armed projection of the state," and that their isolation in
some towns often makes the police sitting ducks for assault.

"They're not neutral bystanders, unfortunately for them," Mr. Salinas said.
"This is one of the many challenges that the government faces in dealing
with the armed oppositionHow do you reconcile a state of war with certain
routine obligations of the state, like security?"

Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert, commander of the National Police, acknowledged
that the militarization of the police is a troublesome trend.

"The police should not be militarizing. The police should continue being
police because otherwise they will lose contact with their original mission
and philosophy," he said in an interview.

"The guerrillas attack us because we are a little bit vulnerable. We are
vulnerable because of the close proximity we must maintain with the
citizenry," Gen. Gilibert explained. "We could place ourselves inside
stations, totally entrenched, and make ourselves invulnerable. But our
mission is to provide a state presence in every corner of the country. ...
We fight as much as our forces permit us."

Targeting stations

The FARC tactic of targeting police stations presents a policy dilemma for
the Pastrana government, which is required constitutionally to provide
police protection in all of the nation's 1,096 municipalities. But 169
municipalities have no police presence at all, and another hundred police
stations have been destroyed by insurgents, Gen. Gilibert said.

Some towns have asked the police to leave, he added.

"We understand. It's not because they don't want the police to be there,
but because they're afraid. They're threatened," Gen. Gilibert said. "We
can't obligate the people to stay at our side physically" when the police
are clearly the targets of FARC attack.

The Rev. Alirio Garcia Soto, the priest of the main church blasted by the
rebels in the town of Colombia, has filed an unusual lawsuit against the
federal government, saying it failed to respond to numerous warnings that
an attack on the town was imminent. He wants the government to pay for the
town's reconstruction costs.

"Let's talk about our rights," he said. "At the root of all this, the
people are living in constant fear. There are rumors that the guerrillas
are going to return and take us all away."

Hundreds have moved

He said hundreds of inhabitants have moved, particularly teenagers who
often are targeted by the FARC for forced recruitment.

"The situation is dangerous. If we don't support the government, they won't
respond when we need help. And if we do support the government, then the
guerrillas will come kill us," the priest said.

An hour's drive away in the town of Alpujarras, which was attacked the same
day as Colombia, acting Mayor Roberto Bautista said the local government is
under increasing pressure from residents to ask the police to leave. FARC
rebels have attacked the town twice since March, with the police station
the primary target both times.

"They bring problems with them," Mr. Bautista said of the police. "Other
towns are asking if maybe it would be better to let the guerrillas take
over. At least then these attacks would stop."

Last week, at a national conference of municipal governments in Bogota,
mayors took the podium repeatedly to weigh the security provided by the
police versus the dangers they pose as magnets for attack.

Evelio Ernesto Piamba, mayor of San Sebastian, in southern Cauca province,
said his town has been without a police presence since September 1999, when
the local force withdrew without notice.

The withdrawal has meant the near-total domination of the municipality by
the rebels, but with a greater degree of tranquillity, he said.

Asked under what conditions would he ask the police to return, he
responded, "That's difficult to talk about, because any mayor who calls for
the police to return is a mayor who has just become a military target" of
the rebels.

A tough choice

Javier Enrique Gallego, mayor of Totoro, Cauca, said his town has been
without police since a November 1997 rebel attack destroyed the police
station. It is a tough choice whether to ask them to return, he said.

"At this point, one doesn't feel secure no matter which way you go, because
with the guerrilla presence, you always feel the pressure they bring to
bear. ... Then again, if the police are there, you always know that they
are going to be the target," the mayor said. "Definitely, we live without
God and without law."