Pubdate: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 Source: Washington Times (DC) Copyright: 2000 News World Communications, Inc. Contact: http://www.washtimes.com/ Author: Michael Easterbrook, Associated Press PASTRANA FACES DECISION ON HELPING LEFTIST REBELS BOGOTA, Colombia - With a deadline looming on whether to continue peace talks with leftist rebels, President Andres Pastrana faces a skeptical public and U.S. accusations of deepening guerrilla involvement in the drug trade. Mr. Pastrana must decide by Thursday whether to authorize continued rebel rule over a vast southern region the government ceded two years ago to spur negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or (FARC). Taking back the demilitarized zone from the FARC could require heavy fighting and would probably be the death knell for negotiations begun in January 1999 to end this country's 36-year-war. Mr. Pastrana has made peace his government's top priority, and has already extended the DMZ several times since pulling some 2,500 troops from the region in November 1998, just prior to the beginning of the talks. Most observers expect him to do so again - even though the FARC recently declared a "freeze" on negotiations. Lengthy meetings took place Friday between a presidential peace envoy and top FARC commander Manuel Marulanda to seek a solution to the impasse. With negotiations yielding few results to date - and accusations mounting that the FARC has used its safe haven to harbor kidnap victims, launch attacks, and smuggle cocaine - public sentiment is against further government generosity. Seventy-six percent of Colombians believe Mr. Pastrana should take back the DMZ unless the talks get back on track, according to a poll published Sunday in the country's leading newspaper, El Tiempo. Eighty-three percent of Colombians do not believe the FARC sincerely wants peace, according to the opinion survey carried out in major cities, which had a 3.7 percent error margin. While refusing to question Mr. Pastrana's peace strategy, U.S. officials launched a barrage of accusations last week of FARC involvement in cocaine trafficking. A State Department spokesman on Wednesday backed recent allegations by Mexico's attorney general that the FARC has supplied cocaine to a major Mexican cartel in return for cash and possibly weapons. The spokesman urged the FARC to sever its ties to the drug trade. The rebels admit they finance their operations in part through a "tax" on peasant farmers who grow drug crops. But the FARC denies any involvement further up the international drug trafficking chain of operations. Growing rebel and paramilitary involvement in the drug trade is one of the main justifications behind a $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package for Colombia. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D