SOME COLOMBIANS GET HOPE AS REBELS PUSH PRISONER SWAP

Others Left In Dark About Police Officers, Soldiers

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia -- Summoned by the leftist rebels who hold
their sons, husbands and brothers, relatives of 382 Colombian police
officers and soldiers captured during the past two years converged on this
southern guerrilla stronghold.

Most got small parcels of hope: letters and pictures attesting to the men's
health and well-being. Some got nothing but frustration.

But everyone got the same message, pronounced Wednesday from a flatbed truck
by a green-fatigued rebel political officer: They won't see their loved ones
until the government agrees to free about 450 jailed guerrillas.

"It's very clear that the state and the military high command are radically
opposed to exchanging prisoners of war," Comandante Ivan Rios told the
600-odd relatives the rebels had trucked to a pasture just outside this
steamy ranching town.

President Andres Pastrana's government has refused a prisoner exchange,
saying there must first be substantial progress in negotiations to end
nearly 40 years of armed conflict. The government also insists that the
rebels must free dozens of civilians kidnapped for ransom as part of any swap.

"The topic, I must repeat again, is not on the agenda," Interior Minister
Nestor Humberto Martinez told reporters Wednesday in Bogota, the capital.

When guerrilla leaders told the crowd that Pastrana's government was not
concerned about winning the release of their loved ones because most were
from the lower class, many relatives applauded.

And when they received letters and photos of the hostages -- most of whom
are under 25 -- some mothers dropped to their knees and thanked the Lord.

"We demand that President Pastrana accept the prisoner exchange," said Fanny
Giraldo, whose son, Alex Arroyabe, was captured Dec. 21, 1997, during an
attack on a radar station in Patascoy.

Colombians like these, many of whom feel abandoned by the government, have
been key propaganda targets for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
- -- or FARC -- the country's oldest and largest rebel band.

The guerrillas helped pay for their bus journeys from all corners of
Colombia. Each family received $53 for travel expenses, in addition to food
and basic lodging during their stay from Tuesday through Thursday.

"The rebels received us and listened to us and were the first to open the
doors to us while the government has so far done nothing," said Olga Ruiz, 29.

Ruiz got a letter from her brother, Luis Eduardo, who surrendered to the
FARC a year ago when it overran an anti-narcotics base in the southeastern
town of Miraflores.

"I don't feel humiliated being with the rebels," she said. "They also have
their goals and we're going to support them because they, too, belong to the
people."

Others who left empty-handed said they felt manipulated.

"It's really painful to come and be humiliated in this way," said Magdalena
Rivas, who said she received nothing to show that her son, a police officer
captured six months ago, is alive.

San Vicente is the main town in a sparsely populated Switzerland-size region
that Pastrana cleared of government forces in November as a condition for
launching peace negotiations. The talks have yet to begin in any formal sense.

The 15,000-member FARC has refused to let an international verification
commission attend the talks as an arbitrator and monitor potential abuses by
both sides.

Meanwhile, the FARC has grown even more powerful since Pastrana launched his
peace initiative a year ago.

The rebels, whose attacks on small towns and police posts have become more
frequent and bloody, earn millions of dollars by taxing the cocaine produced
in and transported through the vast rural areas they control.