SEARCH FOR CAPTIVES MOUNTS

But Colombians Debate Effects Of Increased U.S. Presence

Bogota, Colombia - Two weeks after three Americans vanished in the jungles
of southern Colombia, captured by Marxist rebels, their fates are unclear,
their mission cloudy. Not even their names are known.

The three were reportedly working as civilian contractors for the U.S.
military when their plane crashed after reporting engine trouble. On Monday,
the rebels holding them declared the "gringo CIA agents" prisoners of war.

Two other men on the plane - one American, one Colombian - were shot dead.
Local farmers said they resisted going with the rebels, known as the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

As the search for the captive men continues, President George W. Bush
authorized the deployment of up to 150 additional U.S. troops to Colombia to
help, raising concerns that the United States is sliding into deeper
involvement in the 38-year-old civil war here. More than 200 U.S. military
personnel are already there, many training Colombian troops.

"This is not Afghanistan, this is not Iraq, this is not Vietnam," Colombian
congressman Gustavo Petro said recently. "If Americans get more deeply
involved, it's going to get worse."

U.S. involvement has indeed been increasing in recent years, as the Bush
administration seeks both to combat drug production and to help the
hard-line government of President Alvaro Uribe against the rebels and
right-wing paramilitary groups. Colombia's war kills about 3,500 people,
mostly civilians, each year.

The United States has given Colombia about $2 billion, mostly in military
aid, since 2001 to impede the cocaine trade and train soldiers to fight the
guerrillas. The recently passed 2003 budget adds $500 million to the
initiative, called Plan Colombia.

Uribe, inaugurated in August, has also intensified his government's aerial
assault in the hope of crippling the world's largest cocaine industry by
destroying coca fields.

The FARC guerrillas, who get hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the
cocaine trade, denounced Bush's move to send more troops as a "barefaced
invasion of our country by the United States."

While both U.S. and Colombian intelligence experts say the anti-drug effort
has cut into the rebels' financing, FARC still controls many rural areas.
The rebels were allowed to occupy part of southern Colombia, a key
coca-growing area, during peace talks that collapsed last February.

On Feb. 13, the pilot of the single-engine Cessna had crash-landed there a
few hundred yards from the site of a meeting between commanders of two FARC
units, according to a Colombian army commander. Though the army was on the
scene within an hour, the rebels and captives had already disappeared.

While U.S. officials have not confirmed the nature of the joint
Colombian-U.S. mission, the Americans work for California Microwave Systems,
based in Belcamp, Md., according to a company spokesman. A unit of Northrop
Grumman, the company provides surveillance systems for the U.S. military, he
said.

Relatives in Montgomery, Ala., said Thomas John Janis, 56, was the American
shot in the head about a mile from the wreckage of the plane. He was buried
Monday in Arlington National Cemetery. The Pentagon has not named any of the
men.

As the search escalated, Colombians debated the effects of the increased
U.S. focus. The Colombian Senate's foreign relations committee called a
special session in coming days to debate the constitutionality of the
deployment of more U.S. troops, said Jimmy Chamorro, vice president of the
committee.

Juan Carlos Lecompte, whose wife is being held by the rebels, said he hoped
the extra international pressure would help gain the captives' freedom. The
FARC has kidnapped hundreds of other people. It hopes to exchange some of
them, including the Americans, with jailed rebels. "I think it's going to
have a great effect," Lecompte said.

Uribe, whose father was killed by the FARC, has so far refused to negotiate,
despite pressure to do so from some European nations such as France. It is
concerned about Betancourt, a dual Colombian-French national.

Colombian analysts said the Americans' capture had given the FARC rebels new
leverage. "For them, these gringos just fell out of the heavens," said
political analyst Leon Valencia.

Valencia said that to preserve that leverage, the rebels would probably keep
the Americans safe unless a rescue attempt was mounted. "At that point, it's
combat, and they will fight to the death," he said.