Executions, abuse by FARC alleged

 BY TIM JOHNSON

 LA MACARENA, Colombia -- Deep in the territory controlled by Colombia's
 largest rebel group, armed guerrillas collect tolls, operate bulldozers, zip around
 in jeeps, oversee work brigades and issue snap rulings at makeshift tribunals.

 They keep a careful eye on outsiders, and kick out locals who oppose them.
 Once a month, rebels round up townspeople for lectures on Marxism and against
 U.S. involvement in Colombia's war.

 It has been 20 months since President Andrés Pastrana, trying to launch peace
 talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a leftist army of some
 17,000 guerrillas, handed the rebels a region larger than Massachusetts,
 Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.

 Colombian security forces withdrew from the demilitarized zone, but civilian
 government officials were expected to remain in place during the no-deadlines
 negotiations, even though the guerrillas would clearly have the run of the region.

 Although the move got the rebels to the bargaining table, criticism is growing
 among those who claim that the guerrillas have made the enclave a
 ``concentration camp'' for kidnap victims and are using it to amass stolen cars,
 recruit children as soldiers and execute alleged enemies.

 Much of what happens in the enclave remains a mystery. Rebel bases are
 off-limits, reportedly surrounded by land mines.

 During a three-day trip through part of the enclave, a Herald reporter found the
 insurgency only partially interested in winning hearts or making the region a
 showcase for their cause. The rebel presence divides local residents.
 TWO VIEWS

 ``Some people see them as the solution,'' said Dr. Pedro Pastor Guerrero, chief of
 the local hospital. ``Others are afraid of the commander and the rest of them
 because they are so rigid.''

 Guerrillas don't directly administer any of the five townships in the enclave, and
 Iván Ríos, a rebel commander who let the reporter make the trip, suggested that
 the enclave experience does not gauge the FARC's ability to govern Colombia one
 day.

 ``The fundamental reason for the creation of the zone is so people can converse
 here . . . without armed confrontation,'' Ríos said. ``We have to leave the
 municipal governments alone. . . . We have promised to allow them to work.''

 It takes a six-hour, bone-jarring jeep ride to reach this ranching town at the edge
 of the Sierra de la Macarena, an 8,000-foot promontory that juts out of Colombia's
 eastern plains. Most of the 2,500 or so residents move about on horseback or
 scooter along its dusty roads. Guerrillas rip through the streets in new sport utility
 vehicles, mingling occasionally with locals but living at camps in rural areas.

 As in the other four townships, La Macarena no longer has a local judge or local
 prosecutors; feeling threatened, they left after the government pulled out. Basic
 law enforcement is in the hands of 31 ``civic policemen,'' most of whom only wield
 nightsticks. Heavily armed guerrillas often loiter in the town plaza.

 Some residents say the departure in late 1998 of soldiers from a nearby army
 base has not affected them.

 ``To us, it is the same if there is a demilitarized area or if there is not,'' said
 Salomón Cepeda, a town council member.

 ``Without the demilitarized area, [the guerrillas] would still be close by, maybe 20
 minutes or half an hour,'' said Huber Forero, a hospital worker.

 11 P.M. CURFEW

 Nonetheless, the guerrillas now call many of the shots in the town. They have
 established an 11 p.m. curfew and rallied work brigades to clean ditches.

 A stranger draws stares. Some locals squirm at questions.

 ``Do you have permission from them to conduct this interview? You should get it,''
 said a drug store owner, who gave her name only as Clara Inés. She said that
 rebels had imposed discipline, eliminating weekend bar brawls.

 ``Everybody obeys. It is good,'' she said.

 Like others, she voiced relief that the demilitarization has kept La Macarena out of
 the fighting that racks much of the rest of Colombia.

 With a little prodding, though, most people offer complaints. Some don't like the
 monthly Marxism meetings run by the rebels, where attendance is obligatory.

 ``We go because we have to, but we don't like it,'' she said.

 Others resent the wealth of the rebels.

 ``They talk to us about equal conditions for all. But you don't see it in them. They
 go around in the latest model vehicles,'' said Jorge Arévalo, a national park ranger.

 Still others fear that the FARC may force them out of the region, seizing their
 ranches with no compensation, as has occurred on several occasions.

 TEACHER KICKED OUT

 In early July, a school teacher, Odisfan Gómez, was exiled because he had once
 served in the army and a rebel commander accused him of being a snitch.

 At Town Hall, acting Mayor Ernesto Sánchez grew nervous at questions: ``There
 is no freedom of expression here. You can't say what you think. . . . This is their
 zone, and they outrank us here in the municipality.''

 The greatest fear, though, is what may happen if the demilitarized region suddenly
 ends and the army and outlaw right-wing militias retaliate against those
 considered guerrilla collaborators.

 ``If this happens, we run the risk that they'll finish us off,'' said civic policeman
 Rosemberg Vargas Torres.

 Pastrana has staked his presidency on seeking peace with the guerrillas, and is
 unlikely to end the demilitarized zone, but pressure is growing on him as never
 before to investigate abuses and perhaps reduce the size of the enclave.

 ``No one has explained to me why you need [16,000 square miles] and tens of
 thousands of enslaved citizens to sit down at a table to talk,'' Sen. Enrique
 Gómez Hurtado, a leader of the Conservative Party that backs Pastrana, said in
 an interview in Bogotá, the capital.

 He scorned a suggestion that some residents are happy with the demilitarized
 zone because it keeps them out of the fighting.

 `REGIME OF TERROR'

 ``If you go talk to those people, they will tell you, just like in Pyongyang, that they
 are happy. We know it's a regime of terror,'' he said.

 Capitalizing on disillusionment with the peace talks, Alvaro Uribe, a former state
 governor and possible presidential contender in 2002, called on Pastrana last
 week to abandon the peace table and restore order to the region.

 The debate has intensified amid persistent reports that the FARC uses the
 enclave as a hideout for kidnap victims while its rebels make ransom demands.

 A newspaper, El Tiempo, said the rebels have moved as many as 71 kidnap
 victims through the demilitarized zone, and Catholic Bishop Alfonso Cabezas
 declared that the enclave has become a ``concentration camp.'' Adding to the
 debate, Prosecutor General Alfonso Gómez Méndez said July 6 that two of the
 143 children currently kidnapped in Colombia are held in the demilitarized zone.
 They are Andrés Navas, a 3-year-old whose parents say the FARC is seeking an
 $8 million ransom, and 9-year-old Clara Pantoja, who is held for a $5 million
 ransom.

 Children have been increasingly targeted by Colombian kidnappers -- both
 guerrillas and common criminals -- in recent months because of the belief that
 parents would be much more willing to pay large ransoms for their release.

 FARC spokesman Raúl Reyes said rebels hold no kidnap victims in the DMZ.

 ``We know perfectly well that the zone was demilitarized so we could hold a
 dialogue,'' Reyes said. ``The FARC has a policy against kidnapping children.''

 Authorities say other crimes may be occurring in the enclave.

 EXECUTION REPORTS

 The Pastrana government has received reports that the FARC has executed at
 least 26 people in the zone since late 1998, most of them accused of being
 enemy paramilitary members, a senior official said, on condition of anonymity.
 And as many as 1,000 stolen vehicles may have flowed into the enclave, some of
 them huge trucks, he added.

 ``There's an incredible number of stolen vehicles in this township,'' said an official
 in San Vicente del Caguán, the enclave's largest municipality.

 Indeed, on a road trip from San Vicente del Caguán to La Macarena, a visitor
 sees fleets of trucks without license plates as well as more than a dozen heavy
 earth-moving machines operated by rebels.

 Frequent rebel checkpoints line the roadways. One checkpoint exacted a toll of
 10,000 pesos (about $5). Rebels could be seen constructing dirt roads, erecting
 buildings and expanding bases -- as if the enclave might become permanent. The
 FARC has built at least three major bases in the region, one near La Sombra,
 another at Betania and a third known simply as Jordan.

 At the Jordan base, FARC commanders offer basic training to as many as 800
 combatants at a time, many of them minors forcibly recruited from peasant
 families, said a human rights official who requested anonymity.

 PUBLIC WORKS

 Ríos, the rebel commander, declined to outline FARC military activities in the
 zone but said guerrillas mostly engage in public works projects.

 ``More than 100 roads have been paved in San Vicente at a cost of about 10
 percent of what is normal,'' he said. ``There have been immunization drives, and
 the central government has been pressured to bring electricity to various hamlets
 in the zone.''

 Another commander, Gabriel Angel, cited the provisional rebel court system in
 which tents have been set up outside each major town to deal with rural people
 seeking judgments on bad debts, boundary disputes and other grievances.

 Guerrillas declined to let a reporter observe a session or take photos.

 Ríos, the commander, said he isn't concerned that the government might
 terminate the enclave status.

 ``We've always been in this area. We're not going anywhere. We're not going to
 leave the zone,'' he said.