Pubdate: Thu, 07 Dec 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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Author: Juan Forero

REBEL CONTROL OF LARGE ZONE IN COLOMBIA IS EXTENDED

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 6--Despite flagging support for his peace 
efforts, President Andres Pastrana opted today to give the nation's 
largest rebel group an eight-week extension on the demilitarized zone 
that the government ceded to the rebels two years ago.

Mr. Pastrana had until midnight to decide whether to let the rebels 
keep control of the zone--totaling 16,000 square miles in southern 
Colombia, the size of Switzerland--or retake it by force. With the 
extension, Mr. Pastrana is banking that government negotiators will 
be able to restart peace talks that have been all but dead since 
mid-November, when the rebels froze the talks to protest what they 
said was the government's inability to control right-wing 
paramilitary forces.

The extension will last until January 31, said Camilo Gomez, the 
government's lead negotiator. "It is clear the extension is aimed at 
resolving the frozen dialogues and to advance humanitarian accords 
that we had been working on," he said.

Mr. Gomez cautioned, however, that the extension came with 
conditions, namely restrictions on the entry of people and supplies 
into the demilitarized zone.

News of the extension was made public about 15 minutes before 
midnight, after Mr. Pastrana met with members of the Colombian 
Congress, government ministers and foreign ambassadors, including 
Anne Patterson of the United States.

"It's not an easy decision, but the president has a strong commitment 
to the peace process," Ms. Patterson said. "We all agree that a 
negotiated peace is the only way for Colombia."

Mr. Pastrana's decision comes two years after his government, hopeful 
that the 36-year war could be ended, created the zone for the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. In November 1998, 
the government pulled 2,500 troops out of the area in Caqueta 
Province.

But that area has become a political liability for Mr. Pastrana. As 
peace talks sputtered, rebel attacks across the country mounted, many 
of them started from inside the territory, the government has said.

The rebels are also accused of forcefully recruiting teenage fighters 
who lived in the zone and using the territory as a safe place to hold 
kidnapping victims. This week, a Colombian newsmagazine reported that 
Venezuelan military officials visited FARC leaders inside the zone, 
without Colombian government approval. Colombian and United States 
government officials have also accused the FARC of reaping millions 
of dollars inside the zone by taxing coca farmers and drug 
traffickers and running coca-processing labs.

During his visit to Colombia last month, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the 
United States drug policy coordinator, said that what happened in the 
FARC-controlled area was predictable.

"It has been turned into an armed bastion of the FARC," Mr. McCaffrey 
said. "They're building roads, airfields. They're processing cocaine."
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