Pubdate: Tues, 21 Sep 1999 Source: Daily Telegraph (UK) Copyright: of Telegraph Group Limited 1999 Contact: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Author: Philip Delves Broughton in New York NOBEL WRITER IS COLOMBIAN GO-BETWEEN Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel prize-winning Colombian writer, has been acting as a behind-the-scenes negotiator in talks between Washington and Bogota on how to quell Colombia's drug and civil wars. The author helped bring together Presidents Clinton and Andres Pastrana earlier this year. He has also used his close friendship with Fidel Castro to enable Mr Pastrana to talk to the Cuban-linked rebels waging war in his country. In an interview with the New Yorker magazine, Garcia Marquez, 72, tells how his fame and the respect he commands in his divided country enables him to act as a "fixer". The violence in Colombia has now reached a point where 200 people are kidnapped and 2,000 are murdered a month. Since the summer, America has pledged hundreds of million of pounds to help the Colombian government fight FARC, the richest rebel group in Latin America. Garcia Marquez's interview was published on the day Mr Pastrana came to New York to present his political strategy to the United Nations. Today he will travel to Washington to meet Mr Clinton, Congressional leaders, and senior drug enforcement officials. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck