Jasper Corbett, Christian Aid's Latin America and Caribbean journalist, speaks to Jorge Rojas, director of a Bogotá-based organisation that works with displaced people and on human rights issues. He finds that many Colombians believe the Plan Colombia, introduced under President Clinton, will help to escalate an unwinnable war which is having a catastrophic effect on the civilian population.

Colombia's four-decade-long civil conflict, which has cost more than 35,000 lives in the past 10 years, has gathered pace in the past year and there are signs that it could escalate still further.

Human rights groups estimate that the violence forced more than 300,000 people to leave their homes in 2000, bringing the number of internally displaced people to just over two million.

Jorge Rojas is the director of CODHES, a Christian Aid-supported organisation based in Bogota that works with displaced people and on human rights issues.

He believes that the next few months are going to be critical, especially as U.S. policy on Colombia takes shape under President George W. Bush. "We will discover whether the country plunges headlong into an all-out war between the armed forces, the paramilitaries and the guerrillas, or whether the warring sides are prepared to sit down and negotiate around a table," Rojas said.

He is not optimistic about the chances for peace. Under a multibillion dollar, U.S.-backed aid plan aimed at combating the drugs trade, the Colombian armed forces have launched a major aerial fumigation operation against coca farmers in the southern jungle-state of Putumayo, an area fought over by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, and right-wing paramilitaries.

Critics of Plan Colombia say that giving hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to an army with one of the worst human rights records in the world is a recipe for further disaster.

A PLAN FOR WAR

"This is a plan for war and not for peace," said Rojas. "Unfortunately parts of the government and the military are not interested in peace. However, we must keep the dialogue going and try to keep the peace process on track in order to avert a far worse humanitarian catastrophe."

Colombian President Andres Pastrana is facing fierce criticism from both within his own government and from the opposition for allowing the 15,000-strong FARC to continue to control a vast demilitarised zone in the south of the country.

Critics say the guerrillas have used the area to train recruits, launch attacks against the state as well as grow and export drugs and hold more than 450 members of the police and armed forces prisoner.

Public support for the peace process is waning rapidly. The more hawkish elements in the government and the armed forces want the military to reoccupy the area, a move which many believe will mean an end to the peace process. Rojas believes that, in spite of its shortcomings, the demilitarised zone is the only way of keeping the door to the peace process open and preventing all-out war.

Until now, the impact of the war has been felt most directly by those living in the countryside. But the increasing number of people fleeing the violence there and moving to the cities is causing alarm.

SHANTY TOWNS

Vast shanty towns of displaced people have sprung up on the outskirts of the all the big urban centres. In the historic port of Cartagena -- the preferred holiday destination for wealthy Colombians and the scene of a fleeting visit by President Clinton last year -- the number of displaced people has reached 50,000.

With appalling sanitary conditions, little or no employment or education and substandard housing, these people represent the forgotten victims of Colombia's vicious civil war.

It is not yet clear how Bush's presence in the White House will affect U.S. involvement in Colombia.

Paz Colombia, an umbrella group of NGOs and civil society organisations which has campaigned in favour of the peace process, is leading calls for an end to U.S. involvement in Plan Colombia and for the appointment of a United Nations commission to investigate ways of controlling and eradicating drug production in order to remove the financial incentive that is helping fuel the war.

Under Clinton, Paz Colombia's calls went unheeded. While Clinton spent the dying days of his presidency trying, unsuccessfully, to bring the warring sides in the Middle East to the negotiating table, many observers believe he will be remembered in Colombia for helping escalate an unwinnable conflict which is having a catastrophic impact on the civilian population.