EARMARKED FOR COLOMBIAN REBELS, A REGION ASKS TO BE LEFT ALONE

YONDO, Colombia -- For years, the people of this thriving little oil town
on the bank of the Magdalena River complained that the authorities back in
Bogota never paid them any attention. But now that they and their neighbors
have suddenly become pivotal to a government plan to open peace talks with
second-largest guerrilla group here, they want only to be left alone. When
President Andres Pastrana announced the plan in April, it seemed a simple
matter. To lure the Marxist rebels of the Army of National Liberation, or
E.L.N., into negotiations, Yondo and two other municipalities north of here
were to be turned into a "zone of encounter" under guerrilla control, with
all army and police units withdrawn.

There has never been a shortage of armed groups roaming this area. So the
government apparently thought that an end of hostilities would be welcome.
Left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and the military have all
sought to control this resource rich and strategic region, the Middle
Magdalena. And all have left casualties in their wakes.

What the authorities in Bogota did not expect, though, was the popular
resistance that has emerged. Soon after the announcement, thousands of
protesters blocked the Pan American Highway, cutting off most commerce
between central and northern Colombia.

"If they really want to talk peace, all they need to negotiate is a table
and chairs," said Leonel Uribe Hernandez, a municipal official here and a
leader of the protest. "They don't need all this territory. If the E.L.N.
leaders are worried about their safety, let them talk overseas, in
Venezuela or Spain or Germany. But we don't want to be a part of this."

After several weeks, Mr. Pastrana relented and agreed to a "dialogue" with
residents. As part of a recent accord, the government has agreed to delay
formally establishing the zone until undertaking "popular consultations," a
phrase that the government seems to interpret as town meetings and
workshops, but that residents take to mean a plebiscite.

"This is a democracy, so let the people vote on this and let their will be
respected," Councilman Nixon Arrieta said. "If they say yes, then fine. But
I don't think that is likely to happen, because we have nothing to gain
from this and everything to lose."

The territory that the government has agreed to hand over is roughly the
size of Delaware, or barely one-tenth the size of a separate demilitarized
zone granted to the largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC. But the strategic importance of this area is much
greater because it sits astride the country's main waterway and is within
striking distance of a railway line and the Pan American Highway.

"I don't know what the president was thinking," a teacher here said. "The
E.L.N. has a long history of blowing up oil pipelines, power stations and
transmission lines. And he wants to put them right across the river from
the biggest oil refinery in the country," which processes the bulk of
Colombia's gasoline and is in Barrancabermeja.

Like the more sparsely populated FARC zone to the south, which is larger
than Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined, this is cattle
country and abounds in fertile pastures. But cows and water buffaloes have
to graze alongside oil wells that produce millions of dollars a year in
royalties.

Farther north, the mountains of the Serrania de San Lucas have large
deposits of gold, emeralds, nickel and mercury. The gold mines have been
shut for years because of the violence but could easily reopen after the
fighting stops and soon thereafter begin filling the coffers of the E.L.N.,
which has met with military reverses in recent months.

The biggest and fastest-growing source of wealth in the area, however, is
farming coca. The E.L.N. controlled drug trafficking here until 18 months
ago, when it was violently supplanted by paramilitaries of the United
Peasant Self-Defense force. And the E.L.N. would clearly like to regain the
dominance and the revenues that it once enjoyed.

"This is anything but a fight over ideology," said Mayor Danuil Mecera of
San Pablo, a town an hour's boat ride north of here that is in the E.L.N.
zone. "This is a struggle for economic control and power, pure and simple,
between two illegal armed groups that only want to strengthen their
position at the expense of the other."

As government negotiations with protesters drag on, disgruntled E.L.N.
forces are staying out of the towns and holing up in their mountain
stronghold north of here. In a recent television interview, the senior
commander, Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista, acknowledged that "there is much
fear" of a peace zone but attributed that to "the pressure of paramilitary
groups."

Residents and local officials say their real concern is that violence may
increase after the zone has been set up, because the accord between the
government and the rebels excludes paramilitary forces. With the army and
the police withdrawn, the critics said, residents would be even more likely
to be caught in cross-fire between the rebels and adamant paramilitary units.

"This territory is ours," said the local paramilitary leader, who is known
as Comandante Julian. The fundamental problem, he added, is that "there are
three states here, that of the guerrillas, the real one of the government
and that of the self-defense forces."

Nevertheless, he added, "We will respect what the population decides, and
if they accept a zone, we will withdraw our troops."

Hoping to win over the residents, the national government arranged for
local officials to visit the FARC zone and talk with their counterparts and
other residents there. But that effort backfired when the officials
returned home with tales of extortion of businesses, summary executions,
forced recruitment of teenagers and other guerrilla abuses.

"We can see for ourselves what happened down there, and we've been
contacted by people down there who tell us that we should fight by all
means to prevent what happened to them from happening to us," a pharmacist
in San Pablo said. "The FARC zone has become an independent country, and we
don't want that happening here."