THE ANATOMY OF A COLOMBIAN TERROR ATTACK

Colombians have every reason to believe the worst about their largest
guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It has
profited from the drug trade and killed civilians. The group often kidnaps
the wealthy and kills those who will not pay. So most Colombians had little
reason to doubt the government claim that the FARC was behind an especially
horrible extortion and bombing last month. Before dawn on May 15, armed men
broke into Elvia Cortes's house in a rural area 50 miles north of Bogota and
demanded the equivalent of $7,500. They placed a collar around her neck and
told her that if she did not pay, it would explode. Bomb-disposal experts
worked for hours to defuse the device. It exploded, decapitating Ms. Cortes
and killing a local technician.

Officials of Colombia's police, military and government, including President
Andres Pastrana, immediately blamed the FARC. Police photographs of a
desolate Ms. Cortes, wearing pearl earrings and the terrifying collar, ran
in newspapers all over the world, often with captions identifying the FARC
as responsible.

The bomb's political effects have been significant. Mr. Pastrana canceled an
important session of the government's peace talks with the FARC. Colombians'
revulsion at the bomb has led many to conclude that the government should
not be trying to make peace with the FARC. The bombing provided a chance for
journalists and editorialists in Colombia and the United States to revisit
the FARC's crimes, and to endorse, with graphic and emotional urgency, a
military aid package for Colombia now before the United States Senate.

But then the Colombian government changed its mind. On May 31, Attorney
General Alfonso Gomez said it was increasingly clear that the FARC was not
responsible for the crime, a statement echoed by other officials. There has
been an arrest, reportedly of a family member of a neighbor who had a
personal dispute with Ms. Cortes.

Since war has existed, combatants have sought to invest atrocities with a
politically convenient interpretation. They can use the pressures of a
wartime climate and journalists' conventions about what is news to
manipulate coverage. The effects of the spin often remain after it has been
discredited -- as it was in the case of Elvia Cortes.

Reports that the government had changed its view were not featured
prominently, even in Colombia. The reversal was gradual and deliberately
undramatic. Moreover, Colombian reporters work in a climate of political
pressure and personal risk. Many of the nation's better journalists are in
exile. The FARC's exoneration was not reported by some American newspapers
that had published news accounts about the incident or editorials blaming
the group. Three days after the attack, The Los Angeles Times ran a
passionate editorial detailing the crime, condemning the FARC and arguing
for military aid. "A FARC spokesman denied responsibility, but that's hard
to believe," the editorial said.

Immediately after the bombing, Mr. Pastrana suspended a meeting in which the
government, FARC and ambassadors from most members of the European Union
were going to examine peasant coca production. The FARC's goal was to
persuade the Europeans not to back fumigation. Since coca cultivation in
FARC-controlled territory is one of the main justifications for Washington's
military aid package, the meeting was important and controversial. It still
has not been rescheduled.

The Clinton administration, which has increasingly distanced itself from the
peace process in Colombia, supported Mr. Pastrana's decision. "These
barbaric acts have to cease" if the rebels are serious about peace, Richard
Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said on May 17.

Colombia's war has a long history of crimes that were not what they seemed.
When the FARC murdered three American environmentalists last year, the
guerrillas first accused the right. On the other side, the guerrillas were
wrongly accused of murdering a prominent conservative politician, Alvaro
Gomez, in 1995. Eventually military men with ties to the right-wing
paramilitaries were arrested.

Acts of war in Colombia today are carried out for the hearts and minds of
not only Colombian peasants, but also Bogota's burghers and the United
States Congress. Those who immediately concluded that the guerrillas were at
fault may have lent their services to a distortion of fact that could
reverberate in Colombia, and Washington, for years to come.