Accusations fly in Colombia

  BY FRANCES ROBLES

  QUIBDO, Colombia - With a video camera rolling and typewriter clattering, survivors of last week's Bojayá massacre began telling their dramatic stories of death and
  escape Tuesday to military investigators and prosecutors trying to piece together the story of what happened in the besieged town.

  Townspeople told The Herald that they ran for their lives May 1, when rightist paramilitaries marched down the streets ordering people from their homes -- a detail not
  previously released by authorities.

  Under orders by the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the paramilitary group known by its initials in Spanish, AUC, people hid in a church, the townspeople said.
  Covering their ears from the constant gunfire outside, 550 people from Chocó state -- mostly children -- made makeshift beds and managed a night's sleep.

  Armed gunmen watched the door.

  ''We tried to get out, but they wouldn't let us out,'' said Dayner Urrutia, 19. 'They said, `Anyone who moves toward the door gets lead.' ''

  CIVILIANS KILLED

  The following afternoon 117 civilians were killed. Their hideaway -- surrounded by the AUC -- was attacked by the enemy, the leftist Armed Revolutionary Forces of
  Colombia, or the FARC.

  The FARC launched a mortar attack on the church, tumbling it to ruins and causing one of the worst massacres in the history of Colombia's 38-year civil conflict.

  At least half the people killed were children.

  While the accusations varied, survivors largely agreed that they were ordered to the church by the paramilitaries -- the right-wing self-proclaimed soldiers who make it
  their business to beat the FARC if the military can't. Some survivors felt they were hostages, while others believed the AUC tried to offer cover from the advancing FARC,
  leftists waging war for nearly four decades.

  The FARC took over Bojayá two years ago. Since the insurgents annihilated the local police department, the guerrillas and civilians have lived largely in peace.

  AUC ARRIVES

  Then came the arrival of the AUC. Some said there were 300 members hiding in the church for three days. Officials say that up to 2,000 descended on the town.

  ''They just started shooting bullets,'' said Yisnet Palacios, a 15-year-old sixth-grader, among the many wounded. 'They say, `Get out of your house!' So you get out.''

  Yisnet spent Wednesday night in the church, huddled with dozens of other families. She remembers the creepy sound of gunfire, but also recalls how on Thursday
  morning everyone ate bread and made jokes about the bizarre night in hiding.

  The laughing stopped around noon.

  ''The next thing I knew, there was a wall covering me,'' she said. ``There were dead and injured everywhere.''

  Her entire family died.

  The United Nations has formally asked the Organization of American States to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the deaths.

  The federal prosecutor's office has begun its investigation, sending detectives supplied with video recorders and typewriters to San Francisco hospital in Quibdó, the
  capital of Chocó where many refugees and wounded have taken refuge.

  SPREADS BLAME

  For the first time since the attack, the FARC took responsibility, but shared the blame with the paramilitaries and the armed forces.

  ''There was never any intention on our part to do the population harm,'' a FARC commander from the José María Córdoba Front told reporters in a communiqué. ``We
  will try to make up for the damage done.''

  The FARC accused the AUC of using the civilians as a shield, and said the military has done nothing to stop the recent influx of paramilitary helicopters on the region.

  The official version of events is that the FARC launched a random terrorist attack on the church. The FARC has recently been blamed for a series of car bombs and other
  attacks on nonmilitary targets that have left dozens dead.

  The Chocó Archdiocese denies that paramilitaries were hiding in the church.

  ''This was an act of barbarity, not an accident,'' said Father Manuel García of the Chocó Archdiocese. ``They had no enemies in that church.''

  But Urrutia, the massacre survivor, said that it was the arrival of the paramilitaries that destroyed Bojayá. Laying in his hospital bed covered in bloody gauze bandages,
  he wept as he told his story.

  ''If the paras had not arrived, we'd all be just fine in our houses,'' he said.

  GAVE SHELTER

  Not all the survivors agree. One man said that the paramilitaries did force the people to the church, but to help them get shelter from the FARC attacks.

  'They arrived [and] presented themselves: `We are the AUC. We are looking for armed people. Our mission is to go after the guerrillas,' '' recalled Octaviano Palacios,
  no relation to Yisnet. ``They didn't do anything else.''

  Palacios, a 50-year-old farmer, shook his head as he remembered townspeople running for their lives Wednesday afternoon, when the fighting started getting hot.

  ''The paras went around saying . . . the guerrillas are taking the town!'' he said. 'People were running. People say, `The paras are bad.' But I can tell you, they weren't
  bothering the people.''

  Palacios also points a finger at the government for letting it all happen.

  ''For being peasants, why do we have to get killed?'' he said. ``Now they are sending in the military. Why? Everybody is already dead.''