TIM JOHNSON

 BOGOTA, Colombia -- Seeking greater publicity, guerrilla groups are turning
 increasingly to mass hostage-takings, in what one expert calls a sign of ``how
 chaotic things are'' in Colombia these days.

 A ragtag group of insurgents on Monday snatched some 40 people -- including
 uniformed schoolchildren -- from the city of Ocaña, shoved them aboard buses
 and escorted them into the hills of northeastern Colombia.

 Under attack by the army, the insurgents eventually freed the hostages, bringing
 a satisfactory end to the latest in a spate of such hostage-takings. Since early
 April, different rebel groups have seized a domestic airliner, herded more than 100
 parishioners from a Roman Catholic church in Cali, and kept 190 people at
 gunpoint at a remote hydroelectric dam. Lesser incidents have affected dozens of
 people.

 ``It seems to be the rage right now,'' said Mike Ackerman, a security consultant
 with the Ackerman Group in Miami. ``It's a unique situation. It conveys how
 chaotic things are.''

 All three of Colombia's leftist insurgencies now engage in mass seizures of
 hostages. Behind Monday's incident was the People's Liberation Army (EPL), a
 poorly armed band of fewer than 1,000 combatants struggling after a series of
 blows by right-wing militias.

 Witnesses said at least 16 guerrillas entered into an urban neighborhood in
 Ocaña, 275 miles north of Bogota, and commandeered school and public buses
 at dawn.

 ``We heard gunfire at about 5:50 in the morning,'' city resident Agustin Lobo told
 the RCN radio network.

 The guerrillas detained schoolchildren and local university students, gathered
 other people off streets, including joggers, business owners and housewives, then
 headed east into mountains, authorities said.

 About 40 people were taken hostage, police Col. Rafael Cepeda Granada said.

 Troops from the army's Second Division ``began combat about 50 minutes after
 the mass kidnapping,'' said Gen. Rafael Hernandez Lopez, head of the military
 joint chiefs of staff. The quick army reaction forced the rebels to free all hostages
 and leave behind rifles, mortars and dynamite, he said.

 One rebel was killed and two hostages were wounded, including an older woman
 hospitalized in serious condition, Hernandez said.

 MOTIVE UNCLEAR

 The motive of Monday's hostage-taking was unclear. But the EPL has sought
 publicity through terrorism. In August, the group kidnapped Roman Catholic
 Bishop Jose de Jesus Quintero of Tibu and held him for 35 days. Late last week,
 the group seized one of Colombia's most popular folk singers, Jorge Velosa.

 Roadblocks are common in Colombia, and guerrillas often take numerous people.
 In a high-tech twist, rebels at roadblocks have begun using portable computers to
 check data bases to determine the assets of potential kidnap victims.

 But headline-grabbing mass hostage-takings began in earnest April 12, when
 rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN), an insurgency of some 5,000
 members, seized an Avianca airliner after it took off from the regional capital of
 Bucaramanga for Bogota. The aircraft was forced down on a remote airstrip, and
 hostages ushered into nearby mountains.

 On Saturday, the guerrillas freed one of the passengers, Daniel Hoffman, a U.S.
 citizen, reportedly responding to an appeal by Venezuelan President Hugo
 Chavez. The group still holds 15 of the 41 passengers and crew members
 originally seized.

 Days later, ELN rebels snatched 11 sport fishermen near Barranquilla.

 And on May 30, an ELN squad swept into a Catholic Mass and took more than
 100 churchgoers at La Maria Church in Cali. Some 40 hostages are still in
 guerrilla hands.

 DAM SEIZED

 On Aug. 31, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), the nation's
 largest insurgency, seized a dam in Anchicaya and retained most of the 191
 people there for a week until authorities agreed to revise electricity rates.

 Gunmen in Ecuador's northern Sucumbios province kidnapped 12 foreigners on
 Sept. 11, but authorities still don't know if Colombia's FARC rebels were involved.

 ``To really stop this, you need to confront the guerrillas militarily. That's the only
 antidote,'' said Ackerman, the security consultant.

 Ackerman said he could think of no other parallel in Latin America's recent history
 to the mass hostage-takings in Colombia.

 ``I don't think there's any country other than Colombia where [the guerrillas] hold
 enough territory where they can take a large number of people and melt into the
 hills,'' he said.

 In addition to publicity, the guerrillas seek hefty ransoms, Ackerman said.

 ``The parishioner families in Cali had a movement going to the effect that no one
 is going to pay any money. But my gut feeling is that this may have been
 breached. There are a couple of people who have been released who might have
 paid something,'' he said.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald