COLOMBIAN REBELS LAUNCH NEW MOVEMENT WITH FANFARE

VILLA NORA, Colombia (Reuters) - Waving automatic assault rifles and
banners daubed with revolutionary slogans, thousands of Colombian
Marxist guerrillas and peasants launched a clandestine political
movement on Saturday that authorities fear will become a ``party for
war.''

The inauguration ceremony in southeast Colombia marked the
biggest-ever public display of firepower by the Soviet-inspired
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- some 5,000 rebels
equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers.

And for the first time in the rebel group's 36-year history, six of
the FARC's seven-man ruling council, including supreme commander
Manuel ``Sureshot'' Marulanda, appeared together under a banner that
read ``FARC -- Army of the People.''

Rebel chieftains, locked in slow-moving talks with the government to
end a long-running war that has cost 35,000 lives in just 10 years,
urged an audience of some 20,000 workers and peasants to join the
broad-based organization that aims to represent the poor.

For now, the Bolivarian Movement for a New Colombia, named after
19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar, will operate in secret.

Previous efforts to set up a political party in 1985 met with a
backlash by ultra-right death squads against its members.

``It is necessary to make changes in the structures of the state using
the impetus of the Bolivarian Movement in the cities and countryside.
The FARC, the army of the people, will be (the movement's) guarantee
against extermination,'' Marulanda told the crowd.

There appear to be no plans for the movement, controlled by top FARC
ideologue Alfonso Cano, to publicly contest elections any time soon.
There are certainly no plans for the FARC to begin the transition from
Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel army, with an estimated
17,000 combatants and control of some 40 percent of the country, to a
bona fide political party.

``Party Of War''

According to radio conversations intercepted on Friday by the
military, the new political organization appears to be an effort by
the FARC to prepare civilians in rebel-held territories for a period
of political agitation, direct action and even people's war.

``This (movement) is to carry out the revolution ... . It is a party
of war that will participate in all forms of struggle,'' the FARC's
top military strategist Jorge Briceno, also present at the launch,
said in a radio conversation intercepted on Friday by the army.

The launch ceremony took place in the hamlet of Villa Nora on the
outskirts of San Vicente del Caguan, at the heart of a
Switzerland-sized area cleared of government troops 18 months ago to
make way for peace talks.

Peasants traveled here on Saturday by mule, bus and boat hired by the
guerrillas. Some appeared to have no real idea why they had come.
Others suggested they had been forced.

``I didn't want to come but they (the guerrillas) told me there was a
march,'' said one peasant farmer who requested anonymity.

The slow-moving peace process was plunged into its darkest hour this
week when the FARC threatened to step up its campaign of extortion and
kidnap against the rich.

That threat sparked calls for President Andres Pastrana to toughen his
negotiating stance or break off talks altogether. In the midst of the
uproar, Victor Ricardo, the top government peace official, quit.

The FARC has so far largely dictated the pace of peace talks and has
repeatedly warned it would press demands for sweeping land reform and
massive wealth redistribution on the battlefield if negotiations fail
to bear fruit.

Rebels Seen Lacking Political Support

Political analysts and government officials say the FARC's military
power has far outstripped its political support. They estimate no more
than 3 percent of the population back the rebels.

During failed peace talks in 1985, the FARC set up the Patriotic Union
party (UP), which gained early successes in municipal elections. But a
10-year campaign by ultra-right paramilitary gangs, allegedly backed
by the military ad civilian power elites, wiped out some 3,500 members
and destroyed it as an electoral force.

In the light of that experience, few civilians now dare publicly admit
support for the FARC. But the FARC seems likely to try to carve out a
constituency among the 55 percent of Colombians living in poverty and
record numbers of unemployed.

``Times are hard and we have to do something,'' said one peasant who
traveled two days to get to Saturday's event. ``If things get worse
then we'll have to take up arms too.''