GRIEF, OUTRAGE IN COLOMBIA

Probe Ordered of Army's Explanation In Children's Deaths

PUEBLO RICO, Colombia - With this mountain village mourning the death
of six schoolchildren, President Andres Pastrana ordered an
investigation yesterday after an eyewitness said Army troops opened
fire on them without provocation.

The Army maintained yesterday that the children became caught in
combat between leftist rebels and Colombian troops.

"The Army had no intention to shoot any children," said General Jorge
Mora, the Army chief.

The shootings Tuesday, in which four children also were wounded,
provoked outrage. They also undermined the Colombian Army at a time
when the United States is helping train and arm the military as part of
a $1.3 billion counternarcotics effort in the South American country.

The US State Department said yesterday it was appalled by the
children's deaths. In Washington, spokesman Philip Reeker called "on
all sides of the conflict to obey international humanitarian law."

Amid suspicions that the Army is mounting a coverup, Pastrana vowed to
uncover the truth.

"In the memory of these little ones we need to make sure we know what
happened," Pastrana, speaking from the capital, Bogota, said in a
national radio address. "It's urgent we arrive at the truth now."

A man who said he witnessed the shootings rebutted the Army's
contention that the children were killed in cross-fire between
government troops and rebels. Hernando Higuita, who was helping his
wife, a teacher, lead the children on an outing when the soldiers
opened fire, said there were no rebels in the area at the time.

Yesterday, the bodies of three of the children lay in their families'
homes. Three others were in a local chapel. The six were to be buried
later in the day.

Residents of Pueblo Rico, located in a mountainous area, did not
conceal their grief, or their anger at government troops.

"Where do they get their training?" shouted Miriam Lopez, whose 12-year-
old son David was shot and killed. "At the zoo?"

She said she wanted the government to acknowledge its role in the
killings.

Her daughter Viviana, 11, survived the shooting. The girl said she and
her schoolmates were walking on a path when gunfire erupted.

She said she did not know who was doing the shooting.

After the gunfire stopped, government troops emerged from the bushes,
she recalled. One took a look at the dead and wounded children and
began weeping, she said.

"What a mistake," the soldier said, according to Viviana.

"How could they think we were rebels?" she asked.

Her brother's body lay in a white coffin in his grandmother's home. The
streets of this village were virtually empty as residents tried to
console the grieving families.

Army General Eduardo Herrera said the children were shot after they
broke away from the main group of students and ran toward a group of 11
guerrillas of Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National
Liberation Army.

"Those that were shot were separate from the group," he said. Herrera
did not acknowledge or deny that the children may have been shot by his
troops, but he said the troops would not have opened fire if there had
not been rebels in the area.

"Believe me, the soldiers are able to distinguish a line of 50 children
and were not going to fire on them," Herrera said.

Mora added that guerrillas fleeing from the Army had "mixed in with the
children" in order to protect themselves.

But Higuita, the eyewitness, said the children were looking for a place
to have a picnic when the shooting started.

"There were no guerrillas in the zone; there was no fighting. That's
totally false," Higuita said.