By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

          BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Dec. 18 -- A car bomb that exploded on
          Friday killed at least 5 people and injured 26 near the southern city
          where government and leftist rebels were meeting to hammer out a
          cease-fire agreement, authorities said today.

          The bomb, left in an abandoned car and detonated by remote control,
          ripped through a business district of La Hormiga, about 500 miles south
          of the capital, Bogotá, severely damaging the hotel and a bank.

          The dead, three women and two men, appeared to have been
          passers-by. Many people were seriously injured, and the death toll may
          climb, officials said.

          "No organization has claimed responsibility for the bombing," said Álvaro
          Salas, the governor of the Putumayo region. But in a statement,
          Colombian Army officials attributed the attack to the country's largest
          guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

          The car blew up shortly before noon as a military patrol passed by that
          section of the city of 10,000 inhabitants.

          The bombing is the second in southern Colombia in a week. Another
          explosion killed two men on Dec. 9 in the city of Florencia, capital of the
          Caquetá region.

          The guerrillas have mounted a violent offensive in 10 of the 32
          departments of Colombia over the past week. Almost 200 people,
          including 146 guerrillas, have been killed, according to Defense Minister
          Luis Fernando Ramírez.

          The violence has escalated despite President Andrés Pastrana's proposal
          for a one-month cease-fire, starting Dec. 15, in the civil war that has
          claimed 120,000 lives since 1964. The two sides resumed peace talks on
          Thursday.

          The army has accused the rebel leader, Milton de Jesús Toncel, one of
          three rebel delegates to the talks, of ordering the explosion on Friday.

          The Roman Catholic Church issued a statement late Friday calling on
          combatants in the conflict to embark upon a "path toward national
          reconciliation," in the spirit of the holiday season ahead.