BY ANDREA ELLIOTT

 The red, white and blue of an American flag looms behind Fabio Andrade as the Colombian activist's voice fills a crowded Weston conference room.

 Staring back at him are Colombian-American lawyers, doctors, engineers and activists from Miami, Weston, Tampa and Orlando -- the group's future political power brokers.

 ``This is a country of immigrants,'' the 43-year-old political organizer says in the enunciated Spanish for which Colombians are famous. Like other immigrant movements, he says, ``the principle of this movement is to secure our future.''

 More than 125 Colombian Americans were in attendance at the Weston Regional Health Park on Aug. 11. They came to elect a Florida director for a new national
 coalition of Colombian-American social service and political groups that seeks something yet unknown to the estimated half-million Colombians living in the United States: political empowerment.

 Across the nation, Colombians -- long known for their political fragmentation and deep class divisions -- are forming the immigrant group's first cohesive political
 movement, modeled carefully after Miami-Dade County's Cubans and written largely by South Florida's expanding group of prominent Colombians.

 They include Andrade, who founded the Weston-based Americas Community Center, a social services agency; Juan Carlos Zapata, the 34-year-old founder of the
 Colombian American Service Association; and Jose Luis Castillo, a 32-year-old Kendall activist who led protests against the INS's keeping female Colombian asylum seekers in a county jail instead of in an immigration detention center, as males are detained.

 Fueling the movement is a growing sense that Colombia's prolonged civil war will force immigrants to make the United States a permanent home and vie for political
 representation much the way Cubans did in the 1960s.

 ``There's a saying: You either do politics or they do politics to you,'' Zapata said.

 While taking cues from the Cuban example, Colombians form part of an increasingly powerful political force in South Florida: non-Cuban Hispanics, who are now equal in number to Cubans. Their ascension has fueled serious speculation about the region's future balance of power, especially in light of the Cuban American National Foundation's recent troubles.

 "Cubans are losing their hegemony,'' said political scientist Eduardo Gamarra of Florida International University. ``Colombians are finally finding that they have a
 constituency. Before, they were an extension of the Cuban vote.''

 Time will tell whether Colombians can become the organized minority they envision, but recent U.S. Census and INS figures show the potential.

 ASYLUM REQUESTS

 The approval rate of Colombian asylum requests has shot up from 11 percent in 1993 to a striking 65 percent in 2000 -- which INS officials attribute to a rise in legitimate asylum claims.

 About 572,000 Colombians live in the United States, 139,000 of them in Florida, according to census surveys released this month. Though the number is small compared to Florida's approximately 833,000 Cuban Americans, Colombians are Miami-Dade's and Broward's second-largest Hispanic immigrant group.

 Gamarra said those figures almost certainly reflect an undercount, excluding thousands of recent arrivals likely missed by the federal survey because people were either afraid to fill it out or came after it was administered.

 A recent FIU study estimates that in the last three years alone, up to 300,000 Colombians moved to Florida -- bringing with them desperate needs that awakened the movement for political action.

 ``The deepening crisis in Colombia and the increase of immigrants is producing a sense of urgency among Colombians to come together,'' said Luis Guarnizo, a
 sociologist with the University of California at Davis and a leading expert on Colombian immigration. ``I think that we're facing a transition moment in which Colombians can get organized.''

 Miami-Dade's Colombians have made impressive strides.

 In the last six months, they have organized a national conference in Atlanta that unified 400 Colombian-American leaders on a political agenda, vowing to elect a
 Colombian American to the U.S. Senate within six years, mapping a national fundraising effort, and creating the Colombian American Foundation, whose name so closely resembles that of CANF that it's referred to simply as ``the foundation.''

 But two immediate goals provide the movement with its raison d'tre. The first is a widespread lobbying effort to have President Bush grant Colombian refugees temporary protected status, known as TPS, which would give them work permits and legal residency until the government determines it is safe for them to return home.

 The second initiative is the Andean Adjustment Act, which -- if enacted by Congress this fall -- would give legal residency to 65,000 Colombians and 15,000 Peruvians who arrived in the United States before 1995.

 The activists' long-term goal is to affect U.S. policy in Colombia, much the way Cuban Americans have shaped U.S. policy toward Cuba. But unlike Cubans, Colombians share the rare privilege of dual nationality, allowing them to vote, and therefore remain involved politically, in both countries. Two of Colombia's 2002 presidential candidates -- Alvaro Uribe and Horacio Serpa -- visited Miami this year to seek backing; the third, Noemí Sanín, is scheduled to be here in September.

 ``That senator they elect -- because he would be a dual national and would not have to contend with a Fidel [Castro] in power -- could ostensibly be a senator for
 Colombian Americans but could also represent Colombians [living in Colombia] in the U.S. Senate,'' Gamarra said.

 No law would bar a Colombian-American senator from voting in Colombia, said U.S. Senate historian Don Ritchie.

 Adding to the movement's weight is a highly educated, wealthy wave of new immigrants, many of whom arrived on tourist visas and are now seeking political asylum. But the U.S. flag that hung unaccompanied by a Colombian flag at the Weston meeting this month was meant to send them a clear message.

 ``Colombian Americans are leading the group,'' said Andrade, the Colombian activist.

 He and other, more established Colombian Americans provide, they say, an invaluable understanding of U.S. politics and culture.

 POLITICAL MOVE

 The newly arrived Colombians are "overly polite,'' said activist Cecilia Hunt, who at the Weston meeting distributed postcards urging Bush's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, to support temporary protected status.

 ``They have this education that they bring to the table. I'm bringing them down to earth,'' Hunt said, adding that Colombians tend to waste time with florid prose. ``We talk about la coalición, `we are all brothers,' `the terrible war.' What the hell. Let's get the TPS.''

 At the meeting's end, delegates elected Dr. Jack Michel, a prominent activist and chief executive officer of Larkin Community Hospital in South Miami, as the Florida director of the National Association of Colombian American Organizations, and agreed to draft bylaws to be presented at a national meeting in Houston over the Labor Day weekend.

 The political savvy on show that day, Andrade and Castillo agree, was largely the product of studying another, more successful immigrant group: Cuban Americans.

 ``The Cuban success in politics and business influenced us to say, `If they could do it, we can do it,' '' Andrade said.

 Andrade, 43, left New York for Miami in 1995 to become the airport manager for the Grupo Taca airline.

 There he met Pedro Peláez, the Cuban-American businessman whose friendship with Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas drew scrutiny this year after Penelas
 unsuccessfully tried to award Peláez an airport contract.

 ``He guided me through the system,'' Andrade said of Peláez. Through him, Andrade met Penelas and worked on his campaign, and later formed a close alliance with Cuban-American congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart.

 ``My advice to [Andrade] was, `In order for your people to get prominence and respect you have to be involved in the political process,' '' Peláez said.

 At the urging of several Cuban-American friends, Andrade co-founded the Colombian American Political Action Committee in 1995 -- the same year Zapata founded the Colombian American Service Association.

 LEARNING

 Zapata, like Andrade, learned from his Cuban-American friends. From his teens on, Zapata worked in the campaigns of former state Rep. Luis Morse, former Miami City Commissioner Rosario Kennedy, Miami-Dade Commissioner Jimmy Morales and former Miami-Dade Commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla.

 Zapata first held public office in 1996 as chair of the West Kendall Community Council. Last year, he ran for Miami-Dade's District 11 commission seat against another Colombian-American contender, Jose Luis Castillo.

 Instead of working for the Colombian community, critics say, the two rival candidates divided it. But the lesson learned from that race, Colombians now agree, was
 necessary: Had Castillo and Zapata not run against each other, one of them may have won.

 The coming redrawing of state and local political districts may provide Colombian Americans with their next shot at political office.

 ``The Colombian community now has a role to play in the U.S. and here in Florida,'' said Castillo, who founded the Colombian American Foundation in February. ``If we're going to live here, if we're going to raise our kids here, then we should have a voice. That voice is only felt and heard when you're able to vote, when you're able to elect politicians and elect your own.''

 Herald database editor Tim Henderson contributed to this report.

                                   © 2001 The Miami Herald