By Scott Wilson
Saturday; Page A20

SARAVENA, Colombia -- Ultima Lagrima, the Last Tear, is a jumble of low-slung wooden shacks and concrete homes at the southern edge of this battered city.
The neighborhood takes its name from a cemetery that looms at its entrance, whose walls bear a warning for the guerrilla fighters who live there: "Christ Will Return
Soon."

"Look at what time it is, 12:45 p.m., the plain light of day," said Maj. Joaquin Enrique Aldana, the National Police commander here, shaking his head as he received
word that a 30-man patrol had come under fire along Ultima Lagrima's dirt streets. "The people here love the guerrillas. They care for them. They lend them their
houses so they can shoot at us. This is the urban war we are living, sadly with the community providing help to these terrorists who are destroying the town."

Saravena, historically a political and economic stronghold of Colombia's two left-wing guerrilla movements, has become the epicenter of President Alvaro Uribe's
evolving military strategy, the next front in the Colombian government's U.S.-backed war to defeat a 38-year rebellion. This month, the next batch of U.S. military
advisers will arrive at a base on the city's outskirts to begin teaching 4,000 troops from two Colombian army brigades to protect a 500-mile oil pipeline, operated by
Occidental Petroleum Corp. of Los Angeles, that is a frequent guerrilla target.

The arrival signals the start of a new phase of U.S. involvement in Colombia's conflicts following a policy shift this year that added counterinsurgency training to an
agenda previously dominated by anti-drug programs. While the U.S. advisers are not there to take part in combat, Colombia's largest guerrilla force has declared
them military targets. Their deployment here brings them close to one of the war's most active fronts and a civilian population mostly sympathetic to the guerrillas'
cause.

Last month, Uribe named this corner of Arauca province in eastern Colombia one of the country's first "rehabilitation and consolidation" zones. The decree
authorizes the military to conduct searches without warrants, intercept radio and telephone calls, restrict the movement of people and cargo and seize private
property for the war effort, among other measures. The aim, he said, is to bring this area more squarely under government control.

But a recent three-day visit to Saravena and the surrounding area suggested that "rehabilitating" the region would be a lengthy, treacherous process, undertaken with
scant civilian support. It also showed how the new security regulations have intensified the conflict, at least so far.

This zone, comprising three counties and a population of 160,000, offers a glimpse at the outlines of the "democratic security" policy that helped elect Uribe by a
wide margin this year. It also provides an early test for his idea that bringing more military power to bear in guerrilla zones should be the first step in resolving a
conflict that flourishes in areas across much of the country in the absence of government authority and services.

So far, the new security rules have brought mostly economic hardship to people in the area. The strategy has failed to curb attacks on the oil pipeline or government
installations since taking effect Sept. 21. "I don't know what's worse," said Luis Arevalo, 42, a carpenter sipping a soda outside a store on the edge of Ultima
Lagrima, "the illness or the medicine to cure it."

Saravena, which sits on a hot, broad plain 220 miles northeast of Bogota, the capital, is a particularly challenging place for Uribe to begin rehabilitating Colombia.
Settled in the 1950s by refugees fleeing their homes during Colombia's previous period of political violence, Saravena has been a hotbed of resistance to the central
government and fertile ground for Colombia's guerrilla movements.

The National Liberation Army, or ELN, has spread its Marxist message here for close to four decades and enjoys broad support among Saravena's 48,000
residents and sympathy within the local government. The ELN, numbering between 3,000 and 5,000 combatants, is a more ideological organization than its larger
cousin, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an 18,000-member, mostly rural guerrilla movement.

The FARC's arrival in Saravena in 1984 coincided with the discovery of oil in the swampy flatlands to the east. The militarily stronger FARC has squeezed the ELN
for a slice of its revenue, derived mainly from the Cano Limon oil pipeline that carries 100,000 barrels of oil a day from this province on the Venezuela border to the
Caribbean coast.

The pipeline is operated by Occidental in partnership with Ecopetrol, the state-owned oil company. The two guerrilla groups have earned millions of dollars in
royalties paid through sympathetic unions and regional government officials, according to Colombian authorities. The guerrillas blew up the pipeline 170 times last
year, costing the Colombian government $500 million in lost revenue. The number of attacks has dropped to about 20 this year.

About 20 U.S. Special Forces trainers are scheduled to arrive in coming weeks as part of the first phase of a $94 million program approved by Congress this year.
The program is designed to help Colombia increase its financial commitment to the war effort, something demanded by supporters in Congress, by keeping the oil in
the Cano Limon pipeline flowing.

A U.S. military official here said much of the training will involve teaching Colombian troops to operate in six-man reconnaissance units to gather intelligence. But the
official said the military's ability to respond will be limited by a shortage of communications equipment and helicopters. The United States has earmarked $6 million
this year to begin the training program to protect the pipeline, and plans to spend $88 million next year, mostly for equipment. Of the $88 million, $71 million would
be set aside for the purchase of troop transport helicopters.

Until then, the pipeline, which runs above and below ground through thick jungle and along remote plains, will likely remain an easy target despite stepped-up
patrols.

Last week, a few hours after dawn, guerrillas attacked the pipeline near the town of Arauquita. The explosion, which sent a dark plume of smoke into the sky, came
two days after a guerrilla squad infiltrated the heavily guarded Cano Limon complex and launched mortars that damaged four wells.

"What is the guerrilla strategy? To keep the army in the cities so [the guerrillas] can control the countryside," said Carlos Eduardo Bernal, Arauca's appointed
governor who was replaced last week by a retired army colonel. "What's important here is not just public order, but the state's presence in all of these areas."

In the past year, rebels here have destroyed the mayor's office, the city council building, the prosecutor's office and the airport. The mayor, Jose Trinidad Sierra, has
been threatened with death both by the FARC and by a privately funded paramilitary group that fights the guerrillas. In April, the ELN kidnapped Sierra, eight other
elected officials and two priests and held them for eight days to publicize a guerrilla declaration calling for the nationalization of the oil industry. Sierra now keeps
most of his office hours in Arauca city, 75 miles away.

The police station in Saravena has been attacked twice, most recently on Sept. 13, when guerrillas fired six makeshift mortars built from spent propane gas cylinders
from across the town square. The projectiles, launched in broad daylight, killed four civilians. Eleven days later, the guerrillas fired 10 makeshift mortars on the army
battalion's quarters where U.S. trainers will be based. Not one hit its target.

"How are people here collaborating? In many cases, just by staying silent," said Sandra Patricia Martheyn, the federal prosecutor here. "Right now government
forces are touching the sensitive spots of the insurgent groups, so it's logical there will be a response from them. But the people here must know that the state has
arrived. A process of reeducation has started."

Since Saravena was designated a rehabilitation area, Colombian officials have detained between 40 and 50 people, a fivefold increase in the arrest rate. Half of those
were charged with participating in the contraband gasoline trade, supplied by fuel coming over the border from Venezuela or stolen from the pipeline complex. The
others face charges of rebellion, membership in a guerrilla group or illegal gun possession.

The crackdown on contraband gasoline has hit the civilian population hard. Gasoline and cement are key ingredients in cocaine production, a big business here for
the FARC. Colombian officials estimate that 25,000 acres of coca, the basic ingredient in cocaine, is under cultivation in a triangle extending to the southeast of here.
The FARC earns millions of dollars a month by protecting both the coca crops -- mixed among legal crops that provide food for the region -- and dozens of
rudimentary airstrips used to move the processed cocaine to Venezuela.

Because Colombian security forces have stopped the illegal gasoline trade and have prevented cement from entering the security zone, gas prices have risen from 80
cents a gallon to more than $2. Cement has become scarce.

Jose Fernandez, 48, has had his hours reduced at his construction job. Work on the public housing project he is helping to build has almost stopped for lack of
cement.

"We're paralyzed," said Fernandez, sitting in front of a corner grocery covered in FARC graffiti. "Meanwhile, the people doing the drugs are fine. They have their
own sources for cement and gasoline in Venezuela, and they always will."

Police also have prohibited motorcycles from carrying passengers in an effort to prevent drive-by attacks. Henry Navarro, 32, a physical education teacher at the
Jose Eustacio Rivera School and the owner of a Suzuki 100, says the rule has kept him at home.

"I can't leave with my wife or my son anymore . . .," said Navarro, who lives in the Montebello neighborhood about three miles from town. "Everyone here is waiting
for the guerrilla response. Always here, the just pay for the [acts of the] unjust in this war."

Colombian military officials here said much more would be needed to bring Saravena under control. No new troops have arrived since the zone was created. Those
already here have encountered a hostile civilian population as they step up operations.

Gen. Carlos Lemus Pedraza, commander of the 18th Brigade, is the military leader of the security zone. Behind his desk at the military headquarters in Arauca city is
a flag bearing the brigade's insignia, which uses an oil well as its centerpiece. He sips coffee from a cobalt-blue mug bearing the word Oxy, short for Occidental
Petroleum.

"We've done what we can with what we have," Lemus said. "Terrorism is very active in this place, and when security forces leave a space, the guerrillas are there to
take advantage of it. We're going to need many more troops to provide protection in urban and rural areas, while also protecting the pipeline."

                                               © 2002 The Washington Post Company