TIM JOHNSON
 Herald Staff Writer

 BOGOTA, Colombia -- In a relentless two-year campaign, Colombia's largest
 guerrilla group has captured more than 400 soldiers and police as hostages and
 now wants to swap them for the freedom of about 400 jailed rebels.

 A proposed law to permit the swap is winding its way through Congress, but it
 faces opposition from the public and from the human rights community.

 Even President Andres Pastrana appears leery of a swap, knowing that the
 release of so many jailed rebels could further strengthen the Revolutionary Armed
 Forces of Colombia and anger elements in his own military.

 Senior army officers vehemently object to freeing any guerrillas.

 The rebels' success in seizing large numbers of hostages has made some sort of
 deal seem likely, however, although it is not clear how soon it will happen.

 Leading efforts to reach a prisoner exchange is Attorney General Jaime Bernal
 Cuellar, who has suggested that humanitarian considerations should compel a
 deal as soon as possible, even if peace talks with the guerrillas fail to gather
 momentum.

 ``We cannot allow these people to remain as hostages indefinitely -- another year,
 or two years, or three years,'' Bernal Cuellar said in an interview.

 Bernal Cuellar is perhaps the only high-level public figure to take up the cause of
 the abducted police and soldiers, whose numbers grow by the month. The plight
 of most hostages is largely ignored since they are from poor families who are
 unable to generate media attention.

 Humanitarian concerns

 But the humanitarian desires for a swap are complicated by legal, military and
 social considerations. Legal experts note that any exchange could expose the
 Pastrana government to international legal action if rebels suspected of crimes
 against humanity go free.

 ``The price of peace cannot be impunity,'' said Jose Miguel Vivanco, a
 Harvard-educated lawyer and regional director of Human Rights Watch. ``To
 pretend that [imprisoned guerrillas] could be released regardless of the atrocities
 they committed is unacceptable.''

 The insurgency, which is known by its Spanish initials as the FARC, has made a
 prisoner release its No. 1 demand.

 ``They have pressed very hard. Why? Because they have people important to their
 war in jail,'' said Sen. Juan Manuel Ospina, a conservative who has met with
 FARC leaders five times in the last 10 months.

 A senior intelligence official downplayed the level of most of the 400 or so jailed
 guerrillas, saying ``only 18 of them are important to the FARC.''

 Other analysts differ. Former Defense Minister Rafael Pardo said higher-level
 FARC inmates have turned prison wings into ideological training centers, forming
 new military commanders for the group's expansion beyond the 15,000 to 17,000
 fighters it now has.

 ``Leaders take time to prepare,'' Pardo said. ``In the jails, they have carried out a
 lot of training of new commanders.''

 Fueled by the narcotics industry, which it protects, the FARC has all the money it
 needs and all the raw recruits it can pay, he said, but not the commanders it
 needs.

 The FARC contends there is no legal difference between the captured soldiers
 and police it holds and its own imprisoned members. The group says the judiciary
 is corrupt, and verdicts against its cadres are invalid.

 Under international law, irregular armed groups have the right to take prisoners, as
 long as they keep them safe, secure and alive.

 ``But it's a completely different game if they pretend to obtain something for their
 release, such as a political advantage, or a ransom, or the release of their
 companions,'' said Vivanco of Human Rights Watch.

 Prisoner swaps

 Prisoner exchanges are not unknown in the hemisphere, although some have
 been troublesome for their proponents. In October 1985, El Salvador's president,
 Jose Napoleon Duarte, took a political beating for letting 24 Marxist guerrillas out
 of jail and allowing the evacuation of 101 wounded insurgents to Cuba in
 exchange for the release of his daughter, who had been kidnapped by the rebels.

 ``Agreeing to release convicted guerrilla fighters . . . would be a very big risk for
 the government,'' said Cynthia Arnson of the Woodrow Wilson Center in
 Washington.

 The rebels have released captives unilaterally in the past. On June 15, 1997, the
 FARC freed 70 soldiers taken in a raid on a small army outpost 10 months earlier.

 Since then, the FARC has taken many more hostages, massing its combatants
 for assaults on large police and army bases where the defenders are forced to
 surrender after exhausting their ammunition.

 The FARC is believed to be holding 203 police officers and about the same
 number of soldiers. In addition, about 600 civilians are in FARC hands, awaiting
 payment of ransom for their release.

 FARC leaders invited relatives of captured soldiers and police to the jungle town of
 San Vicente del Caguan on Aug. 18. About 600 people -- mostly mothers --
 showed up. The FARC let them videotape messages for their sons, paid for their
 food and lodging, and gave them about $55 for travel expenses.

 ``The FARC is trying to wedge the mothers against the government,'' Pardo said.

 Concessions

 The insurgency has balked at offering concessions to Pastrana, who came to
 office 13 months ago on a peace platform. Despite repeated meetings and
 agreement on an agenda, formal peace talks have yet to get under way.

 ``If the FARC wanted to get the peace talks back on track, they could unilaterally
 release some of these soldiers,'' Arnson said. ``It would be precisely that sort of
 concrete gesture that would indicate goodwill and breathe life into the process.''

 Aware of Pastrana's sinking popularity, rebel leaders have appealed to Congress
 to pave the way for a swap. Two weeks ago, FARC leader Manuel Marulanda
 called for a public referendum on whether a swap is feasible.

 ``If it is approved, we will very shortly be giving good news to the country about the
 freeing of the soldiers, and with this, opening roads to peace,'' he said in a letter
 to Senate President Miguel Pinedo Vidal on Aug. 27.

 Whether the public could stomach watching rebels walk free from prison is
 doubtful, some observers say.

 ``In the polls, 65 to 70 percent of the people say `no' to a swap. They believe it
 would be another concession to the guerrillas,'' said Ospina, who noted that
 legislators and Marulanda have vastly different conceptions of how an exchange
 might occur.

 ``Manuel Marulanda has told us that he foresees huge groups released, and that
 there would be fiestas on both sides,'' the senator said.

 But authorities say a gradual release would be far more probable, as they study
 each jailed guerrilla's legal status and possibly allow conditional freedom only for
 those without any link to major massacres or kidnappings.

 Freed guerrillas would still be liable for any pending charges and an amnesty
 would be considered only if peace talks are successful, they said.

 ``It would be illogical to support a position of pardon or amnesty when peace
 negotiations have not even begun,'' the attorney general said.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald