TERRORISM : Colombian ‘Iron Fist’ a Bit Rusty : President goes against his conciliatory nature to crack down on rebels and drug traffickers. Some fear the state of emergency could backfire.

By declaring a state of emergency and announcing strong measures against the country’s leftist guerrillas this week, President Cesar Gaviria finally moved to answer those who accuse him of waffling and weakness in the face of Colombia’s crisis of violence.

Gaviria pledged to use the “iron fist” provided by his new emergency powers to attack two rebel groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), which have stepped up a bloody offensive in recent weeks.

Evidently taking their cue from the president’s harsh words, military forces wasted no time in responding to the guerrilla attacks. In battles around the country, the army killed at least 78 guerrillas in the days after Gaviria’s speech, the Defense Ministry reported.

A statement read over national radio said 53 of those rebels were killed on Friday. At least one soldier also died in the heavy fighting, the report said.

The president’s crackdown has drawn widespread public support, even from many of those who previously accused him of a lack of leadership. An editorial in Bogota’s El Espectador newspaper celebrated Gaviria’s recognition, however late, that “subversive groups want no authority to impede their destruction of the country.”

But several other critics are reserving their praise. They maintain that rather than exercising true leadership, Gaviria is merely reacting to public calls for a harder government line.

“I think taking these steps goes against Gaviria’s nature,” said Rodrigo Losada, a Bogota political scientist. “The president is a negotiator and a conciliator. I get the impression that public opinion and his advisers are pushing him to show how tough he is.”

Gaviria is still trying overcome the impression of presidential weakness left by months of fruitless efforts to draw the rebels into negotiations even as they escalated their attacks on police and economic targets. The offensive culminated Nov. 7, just two days before Gaviria’s speech, when rebels attacked a remote southern Colombia police post, killing 26 officers stationed there.

The president has appeared equally helpless in dealing with Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar, who escaped from jail in July. It has been revealed that Escobar, after controlling the luxury prison for months, was able to slip through hundreds of army troops ordered by Gaviria to transfer Escobar to a more secure facility.

In his speech to the nation, Gaviria repeatedly denounced the country’s estimated 8,000 guerrillas while making briefer mention of drug terrorists.

Authorities accuse Escobar of ordering the recent murders of 53 police officers in Medellin to try to disrupt the search for him and to retaliate for the killing of one of his chief subordinates in an Oct. 28 confrontation with police.

Analysts explain the president’s focus on guerrillas by pointing out that the FARC and the ELN, rather than Escobar and other traffickers, are doing the most damage to the ruling Liberal Party’s constituency.

The rebels earn millions of dollars each year in ransoms paid for the prominent Colombians they kidnap. They earn millions more by extorting money from important businessmen, ranchers and politicians as well as several foreign oil companies operating in the country.

In addition, Gaviria is still reluctant to restart a full-blown war with the Medellin cartel like the one that left hundreds of police and civilians dead in 1989 and 1990, analysts say.

“There is still a certain amount of prudence in the president’s approach to Escobar,” Losada said, “because he knows that Escobar can react with much more force than the guerrillas in terms of bombs and other terrorism in the cities.”

Even in the case of the rebels, Gaviria is placing more emphasis on strategies other than military confrontation. Pledging to hit rebels “in their pocketbooks,” the president announced that he would try to freeze their bank accounts and seize any of their other assets, such as real estate.

In an effort to reduce ransom and extortion payments to the FARC and the ELN, Gaviria said he would punish any official, private citizen or company dealing with the groups for any reason. He included any member of the news media who makes “an apology for the violence” by printing or broadcasting the criminals’ statements.

Skeptics of the president’s plan say payments to rebels are usually made under a cloak of secrecy.

Several reporters maintain that by restricting coverage of the rebels, the government will merely help reduce public knowledge of their activities.

Still others, including several human rights advocates, believe that the president’s strategy will backfire. They argue that the army, which has a long history of human rights abuses, may use its new powers to attack civilians suspected of helping the guerrillas and further heighten violence in the countryside.