Defectors increase, but plan to resettle them is faulted

  BY FRANCES ROBLES

  BOGOTA - After six years as an underground guerrilla warrior, José took a deep breath, raised his arms in the air and slowly strolled toward a Colombian army base.

  Describing his surrender, he said he thought about Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia warnings: If you turn yourself in, they kill you.

  ''I just want some kind of honest civilian job to put the suffering behind me,'' he said days later at a government halfway house. ``Guerrilla life is ugly.''

  José is one of 720 members of illegal Colombian armies who had deserted by mid-June this year. They make up a growing wave of men and women who are going AWOL, turning their backs on Colombia's 40-year conflict, and becoming a cornerstone of President Alvaro Uribe's administration.

  As Uribe gets tougher on the battlefield and pours billions of U.S. aid dollars toward fighting his narco-war, he has another strategy: Get the other guys to quit.

  By publicizing a reinsertion program that was already in place, the current administration has gotten more combatants to desert in nine months than had done so in the
  preceding three years combined. The program suffered a serious blow this week when one of its guerrilla deserters was murdered, and critics question whether the
  government can employ -- and society will accept -- people who know only murder in the mountains.

  STEP TOWARD PEACE

  In a nation where at least 30,000 people are members of illegal armies, a few hundred desertions are unlikely to make tremendous dents on the battlefield, but supporters say they are an important step toward making peace in Colombia.

  ''This is an absurd war,'' José said. ``I don't even know where it's headed.''

  People like José and his wife, also a former guerrilla, now live in a government halfway house at a secret location in the nation's capital. The Defense Ministry allowed The Herald access to the house and its residents, provided that their last names not be published and their faces not be photographed.

  For 18 months, the former soldiers receive job training and, if they need it, learn how to read. Some deserters get up to $4,000 to launch small businesses. All of them got their criminal records wiped clean, provided that they had not been accused of crimes against humanity or kidnapping.

  ''This program is a call for all members of these illegal armed groups to lay down their arms and start a new life,'' said Vice Minister of Defense Andrés Peñate. ``The idea is to resocialize them.''

  Colombia became the scene of a twisted civil conflict 39 years ago, when the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, was formed to overthrow the government and provide social justice for the poor.

  But the kidnapping and extortion the FARC used to fund its insurgency led to the creation of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, an outlaw paramilitary group that kills leftist sympathizers and commits massacres in a quest to beat back the rebels.

  The war claims about 3,500 lives a year in hundreds of selective murders and acts of terrorism.

  After a three-year peace process flopped last year, Uribe was elected to gain ground against the groups that had taken control of much of the nation's territory. Once
  Uribe's military campaign began, he also ordered another crusade: to publicize the reinsertion program.

  To lure the fighters, the government uses radio airwaves, distributes leaflets and even designed nude calendars touting the program's benefits. The minister of defense, a former model herself, put the brakes on the nude calendars.

  TAKING IT PERSONALLY

  Rebels interviewed at the halfway house said they thought the program was new. They had never heard of it.

  ''It's true this program already existed, but this administration turned it into a key element of the government,'' Peñate said. ``President Uribe takes this personally.''

  So far this year, 720 people have turned themselves in, compared with 503 in the same period last year. In the nine months of Uribe's administration, 1,500 people have
  turned themselves in. The years 1999, 2000 and 2001 -- combined -- saw only 888 desertions.

  About 60 percent of this year's deserters are FARC members, 15 percent are children, and 13 percent are female.

  Many of the FARC desertions are likely due to the failure of the peace process, when former President Andrés Pastrana took back a huge swath of territory he had turned over to the rebels.

  Peñate said many leave the ranks because they were forced to join and never believed in the cause. Some are ''more victims than victimizers,'' he said.

  Virtually all of the rebels interviewed said they quit because they had been assured of good jobs and decent salaries, but received neither.

  ''They promise you things -- you'll have money, you'll have everything,'' said José's wife, who said her name was María. ``And you get nothing.''

  Many analysts and former rebels say the government does not have a strong plan to ease the soldiers back into society. Colombia has one of the highest unemployment
  rates in Latin America, and little work for unskilled and often illiterate former soldiers, particularly if the demobilizations become massive.

  Critics also say participants are on their own in terms of safety, a dangerous situation in a revenge-filled war.

  Although program participants seemed confused about their future, and profoundly worried for their families, they agreed it was a positive step.

  ''This way, the government will win,'' said Gregorio, who turned himself in to the Catholic church after deciding against completing a mission: assassinating the governor of Caquetá. ``This will be the only way they can win.''