Government says hit teams could hurt peace efforts

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) --Colombia's main rebel army may be killing deserters,
threatening a major government effort to entice guerrillas to lay down their arms and
rejoin society.

On Sunday, rebel deserter Jenny Rocio Mendivelso was shot dead by another
deserter of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia as she sat in a coffee
shop in southern Bogota.

Jose Contreras, a commander of the Department of Administrative Security --
Colombia's secret police -- told journalists the rebel army has apparently
dispatched hit teams to kill its deserters.

The killers pose as fellow deserters to track down their former
comrades-in-arms, the respected Bogota newspaper El Tiempo reported
Thursday.

President Alvaro Uribe's government has airdropped leaflets and broadcast TV
ads encouraging rebels to leave the guerrilla forces, and promising them fair
treatment.

Almost 700 rebels have deserted so far this year in exchange for clothing, food,
health care and access to education and work training, the government says.
That's upward of 40 percent higher than the same period last year.

Some stay at safe houses in the capital and elsewhere.

Sunday death 'very worrisome'

But after Sunday's killing, Colombian Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez
is concerned that the FARC, as the rebel army is known by its Spanish
acronym, is infiltrating the government "reinsertion program" with active-duty
members.

"The news about the death of Jenny is very sad and very worrisome," Ramirez
told reporters Thursday.

Mendivelso left the ranks of the FARC 2 1/2 years ago, and eight months ago
she left the reinsertion program to strike out on her own. As she sat in a cafe in
a lower income Bogota neighborhood drinking a cup of coffee Sunday, a
gunman approached and shot her in the face, then fled.

The alleged gunman, Esteban Romero was captured hours later. Hernan Dario
Canticus, who was also allegedly involved, was arrested the next day.

Romero admitted he shot Mendivelso, but insisted he did so because she had
been encouraging him to rejoin the FARC, El Tiempo reported.

Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio said his office would
investigate whether rebels were infiltrating the reinsertion program. Authorities
are also looking into whether Canticus had the woman killed because she
reportedly told authorities he was involved in criminal activities.

The Marxist-inspired FARC, which has been fighting a succession of elected
governments in this South American country for 39 years, is believed to have
some 18,000 members.

A smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, is fighting
alongside the FARC against government troops and a handful of outlawed
rightist paramilitary groups.

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.