COLOMBIA CAPITAL SEEN AS TOO RISKY FOR CLINTON VISIT

BOGOTA, (Reuters) -- A car bomb in Bogota at the weekend highlighted
why U.S. President Bill Clinton will not come to the capital on a visit
to war-torn Colombia this month but instead stay in a coastal resort
further from security threats posed by Marxist rebels and narco-
traffickers.

The Colombian government does not publicly recognize it has lost
control over some sectors of Bogota, a city of 6 million inhabitants
which is increasingly in the sights of the country's main Communist
rebel force.

Officials have attributed the decision to host the visit -- the first
to Colombia by a U.S. president in a decade -- in the colonial
Caribbean city of Cartagena on August. 30 to logistic reasons, namely
traffic congestion in Bogota.

But diplomats, including a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia, believe
Bogota would be too dangerous given a recent surge in the long-running
guerrilla war and the potential risk posed by notoriously violent drug
mobs, many of whose jailed leaders now face extradition to the United
States.

Anti-American sentiment is running high among the country's guerrilla
groups and leftist unions after the U.S. Congress approved in June
Clinton's call for a record $1.3 billion package of mostly military aid
to help Colombia fight drugs and the rebels.

On Sunday, a rebel car bomb rocked a military convoy, injuring one
soldier, as it passed through Ciudad Bolivar, a poor neighborhood in
the southern district of the capital.

"Cartagena is very safe. Public order has been deteriorating in
Colombia. Obviously the secret service is not going to want to put the
(U.S.) president in an environment where there's a risk of him being
hurt," Myles Frechette, who was U.S. ambassador in Bogota from 1994 to
late 1997, told Reuters by phone on Monday.

"In recent months, the guerrillas have perpetrated attacks around
Bogota and yesterday's car bombing is a good example of that,"
Frechette added.

URBAN GUERRILLA CELLS

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's
largest surviving 1960s rebel force, has active urban militia units in
Bogota, especially in southern slum areas.

The FARC's urban militias have regrouped and retrained since most of
its top commanders were killed in fighting with the army in 1996. They
have vowed to bring the three-decade-old war, which has cost some
35,000 lives in just the last 10 years, from the countryside into the
city.

In addition, at least five FARC combat units, comprising some 2,000
fighters from a nationwide total of around 17,000, are based in the
mountains ringing Bogota. A year ago, heavy fighting just south of the
capital sparked fears the rebels may be preparing to attack an army
base just inside the city limits.

Drug traffickers, too, have struck in Bogota. In November, six people
died and more than 20 others were injured when suspected
narco-traffickers detonated a powerful car bomb in northern Bogota.

The blast came the day the Supreme Court ruled a Colombian capo could
be sent for trial in the United States -- the first extradition in
eight years.

ANTI-AMERICAN PROTESTS

Besides the risk of violence, the Communist Party and some of the main
labor organizations are planning August. 30 massive demonstrations in
downtown Bogota, and a smaller one in Cartagena, to protest what they
see as U.S. intervention.

Other practical concerns also appear to have influenced the choice of
Cartagena -- often selected for summits by a security-conscious
government -- as the venue for day-long talks between President Andres
Pastrana and Clinton.

The city is an hour's flying time closer to the United States and
Cartagena's imposing colonial architecture will provide a picturesque
photo opportunity, unlike Bogota's grimy streets.

For opponents of U.S. policy in Colombia the choice of Cartagena is
also highly symbolic.

"Cartagena was built by the Spanish and the United States is the new
colonial power," said Communist party No. 2 Carlos Lozano. "Clinton is
the new viceroy."