COLOMBIA'S NEIGHBORS FEAR NEW SPREAD OF REBEL CONFLICT

BOGOTA -- The recent kidnapping of a dozen foreign oil workers and tourists
in Ecuador, apparently by Colombian rebels, has stirred new fears that this
country's longstanding internal conflict is spilling beyond its borders and
increasingly becoming a regional problem.

Colombian guerrillas have used Ecuadoran territory as a rear base and supply
area in the past, often smuggling arms and drugs across the border. But the
kidnapping on Sept. I I was 30 kilometers (19 miles) inside Ecuador, an
unusually deep penetration, and would be the largest operation the rebels
have carried out there.

Fears of the internationalization of Colombia's three-decade conflict have
been growing in recent months, and the Ecuador kidnapping is certain to feed
them. Colombian refugees fleeing heavy fighting have crossed into both
Panama and Venezuela. Peru, following criticism of the Colombian
government's efforts to negotiate a peace settlement with rebels, has
stepped up the deployment of troops along its porous northern border with
Colombia.

Carlos Castano, the leader of Colombia's most feared rightist paramilitary
death squad, also warned of plans to expand the conflict beyond Colombia in
a letter last week to the government's chief peace negotiator.

Accusing Panama's national guard of "working in open connivance with the
rebel group in the border zone" to smuggle arms and drugs, he said his
forces would now regard the Panamanian forces as a "military objective."

After the abduction of the foreigners from a remote jungle zone, Ecuadoran
troops clashed with the intruders, described as about 25 men and women in
combat fatigues. An Ecuadoran soldier was killed in the confrontation, which
has been followed by aerial and ground search operations by both Colombian
and Ecuadoran troops.

Neither of Colombia's main rebel groups has taken responsibility for the
bold strike. But both Ecuadoran and Colombian officials have attributed it
to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, this country's largest
leftist rebel group, saying that the abductions bore all the hallmarks of
its operations.

The mass kidnapping was of the type known as "miraculous fishing," where
guerrillas set up a roadblock along a main highway and take away all
passengers who appear affluent enough to warrant a ransom. An American,
eight Canadians and three Spaniards were kidnapped.

In a statement, the rebel group denied involvement in the kidnapping,
calling the assertion a "perverse slander," and accused the United States of
seeking to internationalize the conflict. But the group has issued similar
disclaimers before, most recently when three Americans working with
Colombian Indian groups were kidnapped in February and then ordered killed
by a rebel commander on suspicion that they were spies.