Human rights groups accuse the paramilitary force of having ties to the military. The Pastrana administration has said the army and the police have indeed been focusing on paramilitary members, arresting and killing fighters in death squads. The troops are being dispatched a week before Mr. Pastrana has to decide whether to take back the 16,000 square miles of jungles and ranches under rebel control. The police and soldiers were pulled out of the zone, in the hope of creating a dialogue. But the talks have repeatedly stalled, and Mr. Pastrana has extended the time limit on the rebels' use of the zone six times, the latest on Dec. 6.
Many people here say the zone has merely served to let the rebels fortify themselves.
Indeed, the government has accused the rebel force, the FARC, of using the land as a site to hold kidnap victims, to recruit child guerrillas, to cultivate coca to buy arms and to organize attacks on other regions. Today and on Tuesday, C-130 transport planes flew in more than 600 reinforcements to the region, troops that could be positioned in an arc from the northeast to the southeast of the zone, said an American Congressional aide who is familiar with the Colombian military. The reinforcements, which add to the 2,500 troops already stationed outside the zone, are seen by some in Colombia as a sign that the government has grown weary with the rebels and may retake the territory when the expiration arrives. But others knowledgeable about the conflict said wresting the zone from the battle-hardened force would be difficult, at the least. The Congressional aide, who has studied the military, said he believed that the army was not ready to engage the rebels in a large-scale operation.