BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) --Two decades ago, she wore olive-drab fatigues, carried an assault rifle and participated in
attacks as a leader of a rebel group.

Today, Vera Grabe wears a cardigan and a skirt, and is the running mate of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Eduardo Garzon, a
former union leader backed by leftist parties and labor unions.

Many of the candidates for Colombia's May 26 election have been hit personally by violence: front-runner Alvaro Uribe's father was
killed by rebels, his running mate was kidnapped by cocaine traffickers, and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt is being held
hostage by rebels.

But none have undergone a more dramatic transformation than Grabe, who as a 22-year-old university student joined the M-19 rebel
movement and over the years rose through the ranks to become one of its leaders.

"In a place full of injustice, you quickly believe you need to make a commitment to radicalism," said the frizzy-haired, blue-eyed Grabe,
whose parents emigrated from Germany in 1950.

Grabe was captured in 1979 and was tortured while being held in an army base in Bogota. She was subjected to the "submarine," in
which the head is covered with a wet towel, making breathing difficult. Soldiers also held her head underwater in a horse trough until
she was on the brink of passing out.

"The sensation of drowning is terrible," Grabe recalled in her autobiography, "Reasons for Living."

She was released after a year in prison and rejoined the ranks of M-19, one of several rebel movements in Colombia.

The group staged high-profile operations, like hijacking trucks carrying milk and eggs and distributing the contents in poor
neighborhoods.

They once tunneled into an army garrison and made off with thousands of weapons, and even raided a party at the Dominican
Embassy in Bogota and took several ambassadors hostage.

"We were like the Robin Hoods of the guerrilla movements," Grabe said in an interview.

But her group also committed darker acts, including the kidnapping and execution in 1976 of a union leader the rebels had accused of
betraying workers' ideals.

In 1985, the M-19 hit bottom when it stormed the Palace of Justice in Bogota. The army counter-attacked, and 115 people were killed
in the bloodbath, including 11 Supreme Court justices and all the rebels who took part.

After a year of peace talks with the government, the M-19 disarmed in 1990. Grabe said she and her fellow fighters had realized war
was not the way to create a more just society for all Colombians.

"We realized that path had run its course, that civilians were suffering," Grabe said. "If you're fighting for the people, but the people
say, 'Hey, stop fighting,"' you cannot continue."

Grabe was elected to the Senate in 1991 and served one four-year-term, but lost her re-election bid. She then began working for the
Peace Observatory, which promotes political awareness and nonviolence.

During an interview in the Peace Observatory's headquarters, located in a drab house in a middle-class neighborhood of the capital,
Grabe sat near a poster of Carlos Pizarro, the supreme leader of the M-19 who was assassinated by a right-wing paramilitary squad in
1990. He was running for president at the time.

Garzon scored only 4 percent in a pre-election poll this month, but Grabe said she hoped the fact that she is on his ticket can inspire
Colombians to sort out their differences peacefully.

"We are a living example of reconciliation and that peace is possible," she said.

    Copyright 2002