Colombians worry president's first week is harbinger of violence.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

BOGOTA _ The week Colombian President Alvaro Uribe took office started out badly.

Just after dawn Aug. 5, fierce combat between rebels and paramilitaries battling over fertile cocaine territory in Cordoba killed so many peasants and rebels that authorities never quite figured out how many died. Maybe 15, the military said. Perhaps 27, or even 60.

Inauguration day, Aug. 7, was worse. Uribe had just stepped into the nation's capitol building and was moments from taking the oath of office when mortars started soaring.

Aimed toward him, they landed instead on little girls, drug addicts, the terribly unlucky and desperately poor, marking what nearly everyone here believes to be the start of a meaner and dirtier war that shows no signs of letting up.

In a single day, at least 22 innocent people were killed by guerrilla warfare. In a week, 50 civilians and six police officers were killed. That doesn't include the 40 or so rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia _ or FARC _ and enemy United Self Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitaries who died planting bombs and shooting guns: The Colombian government doesn't keep count of them.

If Aug. 7 and the week that followed are indicators, Colombia's new president and its 40 million people are in for more violence. A nation at war for nearly 40 years with the leftist insurgency FARC _ and already home to 3,500 related killings a year _ is bracing for the worst.

"Civilians pay a high price for this conflict," said Georges Comninos, chief of the International Red Cross Committee's delegation here. "The latest indicators don't show a calmer period ahead."