BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters)--Suspected Colombian leftist rebels detonated a bomb
hidden in a car carrying oranges outside a market in the capital Bogota on Tuesday, slightly
injuring five people, police said.

The attack came two days after Colombians, frustrated at three years of failed peace
talks with rebels, handed a resounding victory to hard-line, anti-rebel champion
Alvaro Uribe in a presidential election.

"We are working under the hypothesis that this was a terrorist act carried out by the
FARC," Gen. Hector Castro, commander of Bogota's police, told Reuters, referring
to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The injured included the driver, a passenger and three nearby pedestrians, Castro
said. The twisted, charred remains of the car lay among hundreds of oranges
gleaming in a thin rain.

Uribe, who takes office on August 7, has said he will double the number of police
and professional soldiers to combat the FARC, Latin America's oldest and most
powerful rebel army, which is waging a 38-year-old war against the government.

Hours after winning the presidency, Uribe, a former regional governor, told the
FARC the negotiating door was open -- but that rebels must first call a cease-fire,
end their profitable kidnapping business and suspend "terrorist acts."

The FARC has not commented on Uribe's victory.

Colombia's war, increasingly funded by the world's largest cocaine industry,
involves leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitary outlaws and state security forces. The
conflict kills 3,500 people every year.

    Copyright 2002 Reuters.