COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUADS ENDANGERING PEACE TALKS, ANALYSTS SAY

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 12, 1999 - After a three-day rampage by
paramilitary death squads that killed at least 139 people, Colombians
are demanding that their government either negotiate with the outlawed
militias or fight back. The massacres began just a day after peace
talks opened last week between the government and the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's largest Marxist
guerrilla group.

Analysts warned that the talks could unravel if President Andres
Pastrana's administration fails to deal with the far-right
paramilitaries - who target guerrillas and their civilian supporters.

"These are organized groups that have demonstrated a capacity, an evil
ability, to create havoc. We would be naive and stupid if we didn't
take them into account in the peace process,'' said Juan Manuel
Santos, a member of a government-appointed peace commission.

"Pastrana is in a very delicate situation,'' added Robin Kirk, who
monitors Colombia for Human Rights Watch, an independent organization,
in Washington. "I think the talks will survive this, but they may not
survive the fourth or the fifth (paramilitary) offensive.''

Last week, heavily armed gunmen began sweeping through towns and
villages in six of Colombia's 32 states. The paramilitaries robbed and
burned houses and rounded up men, women and children. The attackers
shot, beheaded or slit the throats of the civilians, according to witnesses.

"They came in shooting and knocking down doors and grabbed people
indiscriminately,'' said one distraught survivor in the village of El
Tigre in southern Putumayo state where 26 people were slain. "Children
and students who had nothing to do with the war were killed.''

The death toll is likely to climb because scores of people remain
missing.

Teodoro Diaz, mayor of the northern city of Apartado, announced that
the paramilitaries had circulated a "hit list'' with 100 names.

The U.N. High Commission for Human Rights accused the paramilitaries
of "systematic attacks against the civilian population'' and expressed
"dismay" over the failure of the Colombian army and police to protect
people from the carnage.

On Tuesday, President Pastrana promised a crackdown.

"We are going to reinforce (the army),'' Pastrana said. "They are
going to embark on operations to control this escalation by the
paramilitaries.''

Through massacres and selective assassinations, the paramilitaries,
who have 5,000 fighters in 29 fronts, have managed to roll back some
of the recent military gains by the FARC and the National Liberation
Army, or ELN, a smaller rebel group.

By contrast, the 120,000-man Colombian army appears to be losing
ground.

During the past three years, some 20,000 FARC and ELN fighters have
battered the army and the police in a series of attacks, capturing
more than 300 troops in the process. Government forces also have been
ambushed by the paramilitaries.

"They keep 15 or 20 police in a municipality, and then 100, 150, or
200 rebels or paramilitaries arrive and it's impossible to control the
situation,'' said Alberto Builes Ortega, the governor of Antioquia
state, which was the hardest hit in the offensive. "There needs to be
a much better use of military intelligence, better training and more
troops.''

The paramilitaries sprang up in the 1980s in response to guerrilla
attacks. They are financed by cattle ranchers and other large
landowners - many of whom were victims of rebel kidnappings and
extortion. Some of the groups, however, provide protection for drug
traffickers.

According to Human Rights Watch, the paramilitaries are responsible
for the majority of human rights abuses committed in Colombia and have
carried out hundreds of massacres. Authorities claim that their raids
have displaced more than 300,000 peasants.

Yet they enjoy the backing of many upper-class Colombians, who credit
them with preventing a rebel triumph.

Although they have a separate command structure and source of weapons,
the paramilitaries operate "frequently and in direct coordination with
Colombian security forces,'' according to a report released last year
by Human Rights Watch.

Experts say that there is little enthusiasm by either the army or the
police to go after the paramilitaries because they are often viewed as
allies rather than enemies.

"The paramilitaries have an important base of support from ranchers,
farmers and businessmen,'' said Alfredo Molano, a sociologist and
author. "It's not easy to break these ties, or the ties between the
army and the paramilitaries. Why? Because they are useful. ... They
are the ones who can undertake illegal operations."

The government has arrested more than 100 paramilitaries in the past
year, and has offered a $1 million bounty for the capture of Carlos
Castano, the commander of the paramilitary umbrella organization known
as the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia.

However, Kirk, of Human Rights Watch, said the list of detained
paramilitaries includes only a few high-ranking members and that the
government has ignored the groups' financial backers.

"We haven't seen any evidence that there is a plan on the ground or
working'' to round up important paramilitary leaders, Kirk said.

"At some point, the government has to decide: either they attack the
paramilitaries with the possibility that it divides the army, or they
accept that the paramilitaries continue and break off the talks with
the FARC,'' Molano said.

Castano was rumored to have been killed in a rebel raid on his
headquarters in northern Colombia last month. But he escaped, and the
paramilitary offensive may have been a response to the guerrilla attack.