By Jeremy McDermott In Colombia

Colombia has begun its system of paying civilians for information on the country's warring factions.

On Monday, the first two informants, wearing balaclavas to protect their identity, were handed cash by the authorities on national television.

They received some $2,500 - a small fortune in a nation where more than half the population lives below the poverty line.

The government is seeking to increase the flow of intelligence as the hardliner President, Alvaro Uribe, moves the country onto a war footing.

Pay day

The intelligence the first informants provided was of great interest to new President, Alvaro Uribe, a hardliner elected on the back of his pledge to establish authority in Colombia.

The information led to the arrest of Oswaldo Diaz Alfaro, alias "The Professor", a guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the mastermind behind an assassination attempt on Mr Uribe in April, when he was campaigning for office.

Mr Uribe emerged unscathed when the FARC set off a bomb as his campaign convoy was passing, but five passers-by were killed.

As the bundle of cash was handed over to the informants, Defence Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez made it clear there was plenty more where that came from, and that every Monday, in any part of the country, the security forces would hand over money to informants with valuable intelligence.

Helped by the US, President Uribe is building up the security forces at an unprecedented rate as he moves Colombia onto a war footing and seeks to take the offensive against Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries that dominate almost half of the country.

But the troops cannot hope to find the rebels in this mountainous and jungle country, if they do not know where they are.

And so many more informants are going to have to come forward before the state can turn the tide against the drug-rich and powerful illegal armies.