COLOMBIAN VOTE: BALLOTS FOR BULLETS?

If Hard-Liner Uribe Wins Presidency, Showdown With Rebels Is Likely

BOGOTA, Colombia - When President Andres Pastrana gambled his entire
presidency four years ago on a peace process with Colombian rebels, Betty
and Carlos Becerra gambled along with him. And they lost nearly everything.

Angry, frustrated and feeling betrayed by a peace process that went
nowhere, the Becerras plan to cast their votes in presidential elections
Sunday for the candidate who, they acknowledge, is most likely to put the
country on a footing toward all-out war.

"Our country is being held hostage by the guerrillas," said Ms. Becerra,
52, a retired government worker. "We've lost it all. What more can they do
to us?"

Like millions of other Colombians, the Becerras say they will vote for
Alvaro Uribe, a firebrand independent candidate who, according to the
latest poll results, has a strong chance of winning the election in the
first round.

The vote is crucial for the next phase in Washington's war on drugs, which
at times has been stalled during Mr. Pastrana's presidency because of his
reluctance to risk his peace process by unleashing U.S.-trained
counternarcotics forces against rebels who support the drug trade.

Many in Washington are pushing to expand anti-drug and counter-insurgency
efforts, but only if the next Colombian president is a willing partner.

Mr. Uribe, a 49-year-old former governor with a reputation for iron-fisted
opposition to the guerrillas, says there will be no more talk of peace
concessions to the rebels until government authority is restored across the
country. He said he plans to double military spending until that objective
is achieved.

Although Mr. Uribe says his prosecution of the war will include right-wing
paramilitary groups, his history is one of a man hell-bent on defeating the
rebels.

The nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, killed Mr. Uribe's father during a botched kidnapping in
1983. The FARC has tried to kill Mr. Uribe himself twice during the past
year. For middle-class Colombians like the Becerras, Mr. Uribe's tough talk
has resonated loud and clear. He heads into Sunday's election with a lead
of more than 20 percentage points over his closest opponent. A major poll
published Friday gives him as much as 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Pastrana
cannot seek re-election. The popularity of his Conservative Party has
dropped so steeply that its presidential candidate dropped out in March.

Mr. Becerra, 54, said he believes his anger is shared by millions of other
Colombians who have shifted their support to Mr. Uribe.

The Becerras were impressed four years ago when Mr. Pastrana traveled as a
candidate to the rebel heartland and shook hands with Manuel Marulanda, the
FARC commander. They wholeheartedly endorsed Mr. Pastrana's promise to make
peace his top priority.

They were so confident that he would succeed that the Becerras sank more
than $70,000 of their life savings into buying a ranch in an area of
eastern Colombia where rebels and paramilitary troops roamed freely.

Today, their 1,500-acre ranch and property - a house and all its
furnishings, a truck and 80 head of cattle - have been seized by the FARC.

As a result of their financial losses, the couple has had to rent out the
two lower floors of their house. Their bottom floor is now a bakery and
butcher shop.

The couple still owns a late-model Ford Explorer, which stays locked up in
their garage.

"We don't dare drive it outside the city. The guerrillas would steal it in
an instant," Mr. Becerra explained. "We travel everywhere by bus."

Shortly after taking office, Mr. Pastrana granted the FARC a large haven in
southern Colombia to enhance the prospects for peace.

But in February, under heavy pressure from Mr. Uribe and other critics, the
president dismantled the safe haven and canceled all negotiations, citing a
long series of FARC kidnappings, hijackings, bombings and other actions
that he said made a mockery of the peace process.

Within days of that announcement, the FARC kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, a
presidential candidate and former senator.

"There comes a certain point when the president starts to look like a
clown," Mr. Becerra said. "He gave away too much to the guerrillas."

Although they emphasized that their anger is not directed at Mr. Pastrana,
they said they are voting for Mr. Uribe to send a strong message to the
FARC leadership that, unless the rebels get serious about peace, the nation
is prepared to go to war.

"They made fools of the entire country. People started to make fun of the
president," Ms. Becerra said. "We won't be fooled again."

Mr. Uribe is promising not only to increase military spending dramatically
but also to boost funding for education, health care and other social
programs that he said have been neglected for too long.

That neglect, he said in an interview, has only fueled guerrilla
recruitment efforts.

Finding the necessary funds for both the military and social projects will
be Mr. Uribe's biggest challenge.

Mr. Pastrana's $7 billion program, Plan Colombia, was made possible only
with heavy international assistance, including more than $1.5 billion in
mostly military funding from Washington.

"It is not a question of finding new funding; it is making better use of
what we already have," Mr. Uribe said.

To raise revenue, he plans to shut down Colombian embassies in marginal
countries, cut wasteful spending practices, prosecute tax evaders and make
better use of government royalties from petroleum production.

To help the military and police track down insurgents, Mr. Uribe said, he
will recruit 1 million informants nationwide to report on any suspicious
activities they see. If necessary, he has said, the informants will be
given sidearms for protection.

"You see this already across Colombia," Mr. Uribe said. "In every apartment
building, every supermarket, every restaurant, there are armed men standing
guard."

Mr. Uribe's primary opponent, Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa, says
the front-runner's ideas are a formula for disaster.

The two candidates used to share the same party banner, but Mr. Uribe split
last year when it became clear that he would not win the Liberal Party's
presidential nomination. He now has pledged to uproot the traditional
two-party political system that has kept the Liberal and Conservative
parties alternately in power for nearly six decades.

Mr. Serpa has tried repeatedly throughout the campaign to link Mr. Uribe to
right-wing paramilitary groups, citing their endorsement of the
front-runner's candidacy and their reported use of arms to pressure rural
voters into supporting Mr. Uribe.

"We have a country in which the paramilitaries have their own presidential
candidate," Mr. Serpa said. His only hope in the election is to force Mr.
Uribe into a runoff vote, which Mr. Serpa predicted he will achieve.

"I know that many Colombians are going to support me because Colombia is
not going to commit suicide," he said. "They are going to analyze this
situation, and they are not going to choose war."

Former President Ernesto Samper, the Liberal Party's elder statesman, said
he is torn between the two candidates - and is worried about the direction
the nation might be heading if Mr. Uribe is elected.

"We are at a turning point. ... I believe Colombia is only one step away
from a total war," he said. Under an Uribe government, "You could see more
suffering, but you could also be much closer to the reality of peace over
the medium term" if Mr. Uribe brings the guerrillas under control.