IS COLOMBIA DOOMED TO REPEAT ITS PAST?

BOGOTA, Colombia Walking in Bogota last Wednesday, the day of the
presidential inauguration, was almost like walking through this city 15
years ago. As a journalist who covered the narcoterrorism war in the late
1980's and early 90's, I had flashbacks to the indiscriminate attacks
directed by the drug lord Pablo Escobar. In those days, as on Wednesday,
you had to follow the boom of explosions to know what was going on. Then
you went and found the dismembered bodies, the panic and the fresh despair.

Now the ghost of urban terrorism has returned. Bloody war scenes surrounded
the Colombian presidential palace as Alvaro Uribe Velez was sworn in as
president; 19 people were killed and scores wounded by homemade mortar shells.

This time it was an attack by the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym FARC. (The government blamed FARC;
the group almost never claims responsibility.) FARC is the hemisphere's
largest guerrilla army, with 18,000 members; their activities are partly
financed by cocaine sold in the United States.

The attacks seem to be a declaration of war against the new president. A
former governor of the state of Antioquia, Mr. Uribe, 50, has promised to
defeat the rebels, who have been waging war on the government for 38 years.
FARC killed Mr. Uribe's father in 1983, and almost killed Mr. Uribe during
his presidential campaign.

He is relying on the United States for help in this renewed war on FARC and
the paramilitary groups that are FARC's right-wing counterpart, though only
a little more than half the guerrilla group's size. Although the United
States' $1.5 billion aid package to Colombia, approved three years ago and
mainly focused on killing coca plants with aerial defoliants, has
dramatical ly failed - according to the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, the coca crop increased by 25 percent last year - more aid
is expected by the new government. It would be logical to reorient current
strategies. The Bush administration has asked Congress to allow aid to be
used directly against the guerrillas. Mr. Uribe has also requested broader
American intelligence assistance.

Mr. Uribe's government inherits a pattern of violence in which some several
thousand people have been killed each year. The war pits the FARC against a
right-wing illegal counterguerrilla movement and the government. Colombians
are desperate about the level of violence. "We must overcome fear," Mr.
Uribe urged Wednesday, as he had during his campaign. He defended his
controversial proposal that a million Colombians become informants for
government security forces, perhaps equipped with radios. A similar program
in Antioquia state, led by Mr. Uribe when he was governor, strengthened the
illegal paramilitary groups in the region. A day after his inauguration,
Mr. Uribe said he may also consider arming the citizen groups. Who could
control a million armed civilians?

Fernando Londono, the new interior and justice minister, said in June that
the new administration will push for a constitutional amendment to allow it
to declare a state of siege. Asked which constitutional rights the
prospective emergency law would limit, Mr. Londono said: "All of them.
There are no absolute rights." Does this mean that the new government is
planning a return to Colombia's old days of authoritarianism?

Mr. Londono announced that he is ready to revive the controversial Security
Statute, included in the Colombian Constitution of 1886 and eliminated in
1991, to allow the military to detain civilians without a court order. That
statute was used before, by President Julio Cesar Turbay, in his 1978-1982
term, with devastating consequences: a proliferation of cases of torture
and disappearances and the expansion of guerrilla groups.

It appears the United States will get more involved in the Colombian
conflict. Bush administration officials are enthusiastic about weakening
the rebels, and may be hesitant to respond to criticisms of Mr. Uribe's
hard-line approach.

If that is the case, it seems that more than one ghost is being resurrected
in Colombia. It is not easy to know which is more scary, the ghost of urban
terrorism or the ghost of authoritarianism. Colombians need to be unified
and find protection against both.