Crisis in the cocaine capital: civil war has torn Colombia for nearly 40 years. Peace talks have failed, and the war is again heating up. With drugs, oil, and security at stake, American involvement may expand beyond fighting the war on drugs.

• Author: Brodzinsky, Sibylla
• Position: International

El Paujil, Colombia--The blackout was an ominous sign. Like most residents of this southern Colombian town, Chiqui, a lanky 16-year-old, tried to sleep after a faraway rebel bomb left the entire province without power. But he stayed awake listening for the explosions he was sure would follow. He got up when one blast, then another, rang out: The police station of this rural town had been hit by the grenades of leftist rebels.

It wasn't the first time that guerrillas had targeted the police outpost in El Paujil. But Chiqui sensed Colombia's brutal conflict had taken a turn for the worse.

The night before, Colombian President Andres Pastrana had lost his patience and broken off peace talks with the most powerful rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Earlier that day, the rebels, known by their Spanish acronym, FARC, had hijacked an airplane and kidnapped a senator on board.

In this nation of 40 million people, half live in poverty. The FARC, which has been fighting the government for nearly 40 years in the name of social justice, advocates redistributing land more equitably and greater government control of the economy. The FARC has evolved from a band of a few hundred fighters to a well-equipped army of about 17,000, financed by an organized system of payoffs from Colombia's drug traffickers, extortion, and huge kidnapping ransom payments.

The FARC is challenged by right-wing paramilitaries, whose trademark has become massacring rebels or their civilian sympathizers, often with chainsaws. The paramilitaries began as gunmen hired by drug lords and large landowners to protect them from the FARC rebels. Now, they are an outlaw force of about 11,000. Human rights groups have documented links between the paramilitaries and government troops, who often supply the paramilitary force with information or turn a blind eye when their death squads go on a killing spree.

El Paujil, a gritty town surrounded by pastures and patches of jungle, is 70 miles southwest from San Vicente del Caguan, which was, until late February, the virtual capital of a rebel safe haven about twice the size of New Jersey. Pastrana had granted the area to the rebels in 1998 as a goodwill gesture to further the peace talks. When those talks failed, Pastrana sent government troops to reclaim the former rebel zone. That prompted the FARC to launch a nationwide offensive, bombing bridges, power stations, and telephone transmission towers. They kidnapped a minor presidential candidate just a few miles from El Paujil.

Chiqui--who, like most Colombians caught in the civil war's crossfire, would not give...