Pubdate: Sun, 24 Mar 2002
Source: Reuters (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited
Author: Phil Stewart

COLOMBIA REBEL FOES MAKE WAR IN ONLINE VIDEO GAME

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's outlawed paramilitary gunmen are offering Web 
surfers a bloody online video game in which they can join the country's 
drug-fueled guerrilla war and shoot leftist rebels.

At www.accubec.org/shooting.html, cyber-gamers join paramilitary ranks 
virtually, defend a fictional small town, and kill leftist rebels in a 
conflict that has claimed 40,000 real lives in the past decade.

"The humble population of Aguas Blancas is being attacked by FARC and ELN 
bandits," the Internet site reads, referring to Colombia's two leftist 
rebel groups.

"Your mission is to stop the police headquarters from being destroyed by 
killing as many of these heartless delinquents as possible."

Paramilitary fighters are classified as terrorists by the United States and 
are accused of committing some of Colombia's worst atrocities in their 
fight against guerrillas -- allegedly once using chain saws to hack up 
suspected rebel sympathizers.

In the game, players guide the sights of an assault rifle over the bodies 
of guerrilla fighters. The rebels duck out from doorways and rooftops to 
return fire while lobbing gas-cylinder bombs at the mayor's office. Blood 
spurts from the necks and chests of shot rebels, who fall to the ground and 
disappear.

To advance levels, virtual far-right gunmen need to pick up first-aid boxes 
and "paramilitary shields" -- which absorb 75 percent of the impact of 
incoming rounds.

The game ends when a player has been pierced by too many rebel bullets. The 
site tells you how many guerrillas you have killed and thanks you "for 
supporting a free Colombia."

FARC Man And Elena

The 10,000-member paramilitaries -- born as self-defense militias financed 
by cattle ranchers -- are Colombia's fastest growing insurgent force and 
are accused by rights groups of having deep ties to the military and drug 
trafficking.

The video game is not the only anti-rebel propaganda on the site of the 
Elmer Cardenas block of paramilitary forces, who are fighting rebels for 
control of a key drug and arms trafficking region near the Panama border.

In cartoon-like animation, the block also mocks the rebels in a story 
called "FARC Man and Elena," fictional "heroes" who terrorize common 
Colombians. The man personifying the FARC, Spanish initials for the 
17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has a potbelly, a 
rifle for a nose, and the trademark sweat towel of rebel boss Manuel Marulanda.

Elena, FARC Man's girlfriend, is the personification of the smaller, 
5,000-member National Liberation Army, or ELN. She has a skull for a head, 
bobbed with blond hair, and is wearing a tiny dress barely covering her 
backside.

"A new hero arises ... dedicating his whole life to destroying electricity 
towers, blowing up oil pipelines to save the environment, and kidnapping 
people for pennies," the story says.

"Welcome to the adventures of FARC Man and Elena. Coming soon: They will 
steel your heart. They will steel your hope. They will extort money from 
your family."

Salsa music pipes in, as FARC Man and Elena bomb a small town into 
darkness. "How they like to make us use our dynamite," Elena cackles, her 
skull bouncing side-to-side.

The Internet site is the latest in a marketing campaign by militias, banded 
together under the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

AUC chief and ex-army scout Carlos Castano has launched a new best- selling 
biography called "My Confession." The book, now being exported to the 
United States, Mexico and Venezuela, explains Castano's hatred of the 
guerrillas -- fostered by the rebel kidnapping and killing of his father.
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