"Death has become commonplace in Colombia," said a well-informed U.S. traveler returning from Bogota last week. "The words assassination and murder are bandied about with no more emotion than we talk of beans, butter & bread."
He was talking about the bloody, matter-of-fact, half-underground rural war that has raged for the past three years between Colombia's Liberals and Conservatives. The most cautious estimates of the men, women & children killed now run to 15,000; other estimates go as high as 20,000 or even 50,000.
In Mountain, In Plain. The struggle pits guerrillas of...