Cross Fire

THERE IS A LIMIT TO JUST HOW MUCH VIOLENCE even battle-hardened Colombians can take. Since drug kingpin Pablo Escobar escaped from his maximum-security prison in July, security forces have rounded up or killed dozens of his cronies and relatives; in retaliation, traffickers assassinated 29 police officers over the past two weeks alone. Quite apart from the drug wars, leftist rebels, who so far this year have killed more than 1,000 police, soldiers and civilians, set off a series of bomb explosions and terrorist attacks that left 30 dead, then murdered 26 police guards at a remote oil installation. The public outcry that followed the rebel violence prompted President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo to impose a 90-day national state of emergency that grants him extraordinary powers to pursue the troublemakers without first consulting Congress or the courts. So far, however, the bloodshed continues. Last week army troops killed at least 80 rebels in shoot- outs around the country.