COLOMBIA REBEL FOES MAKE WAR IN ONLINE VIDEO GAME

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's outlawed paramilitary gunmen are offering Web
surfers a bloody online video game in which they can join the country's
drug-fueled guerrilla war and shoot leftist rebels.

At www.accubec.org/shooting.html, cyber-gamers join paramilitary ranks
virtually, defend a fictional small town, and kill leftist rebels in a
conflict that has claimed 40,000 real lives in the past decade.

"The humble population of Aguas Blancas is being attacked by FARC and ELN
bandits," the Internet site reads, referring to Colombia's two leftist
rebel groups.

"Your mission is to stop the police headquarters from being destroyed by
killing as many of these heartless delinquents as possible."

Paramilitary fighters are classified as terrorists by the United States and
are accused of committing some of Colombia's worst atrocities in their
fight against guerrillas -- allegedly once using chain saws to hack up
suspected rebel sympathizers.

In the game, players guide the sights of an assault rifle over the bodies
of guerrilla fighters. The rebels duck out from doorways and rooftops to
return fire while lobbing gas-cylinder bombs at the mayor's office. Blood
spurts from the necks and chests of shot rebels, who fall to the ground and
disappear.

To advance levels, virtual far-right gunmen need to pick up first-aid boxes
and "paramilitary shields" -- which absorb 75 percent of the impact of
incoming rounds.

The game ends when a player has been pierced by too many rebel bullets. The
site tells you how many guerrillas you have killed and thanks you "for
supporting a free Colombia."

FARC Man And Elena

The 10,000-member paramilitaries -- born as self-defense militias financed
by cattle ranchers -- are Colombia's fastest growing insurgent force and
are accused by rights groups of having deep ties to the military and drug
trafficking.

The video game is not the only anti-rebel propaganda on the site of the
Elmer Cardenas block of paramilitary forces, who are fighting rebels for
control of a key drug and arms trafficking region near the Panama border.

In cartoon-like animation, the block also mocks the rebels in a story
called "FARC Man and Elena," fictional "heroes" who terrorize common
Colombians. The man personifying the FARC, Spanish initials for the
17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has a potbelly, a
rifle for a nose, and the trademark sweat towel of rebel boss Manuel Marulanda.

Elena, FARC Man's girlfriend, is the personification of the smaller,
5,000-member National Liberation Army, or ELN. She has a skull for a head,
bobbed with blond hair, and is wearing a tiny dress barely covering her
backside.

"A new hero arises ... dedicating his whole life to destroying electricity
towers, blowing up oil pipelines to save the environment, and kidnapping
people for pennies," the story says.

"Welcome to the adventures of FARC Man and Elena. Coming soon: They will
steel your heart. They will steel your hope. They will extort money from
your family."

Salsa music pipes in, as FARC Man and Elena bomb a small town into
darkness. "How they like to make us use our dynamite," Elena cackles, her
skull bouncing side-to-side.

The Internet site is the latest in a marketing campaign by militias, banded
together under the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

AUC chief and ex-army scout Carlos Castano has launched a new best- selling
biography called "My Confession." The book, now being exported to the
United States, Mexico and Venezuela, explains Castano's hatred of the
guerrillas -- fostered by the rebel kidnapping and killing of his father.