Since 1985, some 1 million Colombians have been driven from their homes by violence. Most live in miserable shantytowns on the fringes of Colombia's major cities.

Colombia Protesters Sew Their Lips

BOGOTA -- Dramatizing their plight, refugees who have occupied a U.N. office since early August sewed their lips together on Thursday and tied themselves to wooden crosses.

``We're staying like this until our problem is solved,'' insisted Conrado Salinas, one of seven men who symbolically sealed their mouths with thin thread, leaving space enough to speak and eat in small bites.

Two more men had their arms and legs bound with cloth to wooden crosses, which companions leaned against a wall of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees' offices.

The men are among some 100 refugees of Colombia's civil conflict who peacefully occupied the offices on Aug. 2, demanding a safe return home or relocation elsewhere.

``We need somehow to get the government's attention,'' said Hober Perez, a spokesman for the group. A July 1997 law obliges the government to provide economic assistance to Colombians displaced by violence, he noted.

Perez accused the government of neglecting the displaced, who in recent months have appeared on the grassy medians of avenues in Bogota's affluent north, begging motorists for alms.

Violence by armed groups --leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitary forces and the military-- forced 308,000 Colombians, mostly peasants, from their homes last year, a 20 percent increase from 1997, according to the independent advocacy group CODHES.

Since 1985, some 1 million Colombians have been driven from their homes by violence. Most live in miserable shantytowns on the fringes of Colombia's major cities.

Children account for some 35 of the refugees at the U.N. office, many of whom sleep and cook in plastic shelters on an adjacent lawn.

Officials of the government's Social Solidarity Network said Thursday that they offered last week to help the refugees look for work in Bogota, but that the refugees demanded a public decree that would also guarantee them lodging.

The network has only the equivalent of $12.7 million for dealing with Colombia's refugees, said the agency's director, Fernando Medellin.