Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 Source: Associated Press Copyright: 1999 Associated Press Author: Frank Bajak STOCK EXCHANGE CHIEF MEETS WITH TOP REBEL COMMANDER BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange explained markets to a senior leftist guerrilla commander on Saturday in Colombia's steamy southern savannah -- and invited him to Wall Street for a firsthand look. Richard Grasso met for 1 1/2 hours with Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the remote hamlet of La Machaca. Grasso told reporters afterward that the surprise meeting, his first with a rebel chief, intended to demonstrate to FARC leaders the support of the world financial community for Colombia's fledgling peace process. Stressing that his talks with a group on the State Department's terrorist list were strictly private, Grasso said he hoped his visit "will mark the beginning of a new relationship between the FARC and the United States." He said he invited Reyes to visit Wall Street to see for himself how the markets work and also explained how Colombia would benefit from the increased global investment it could expect if nearly four decades of civil conflict can be ended. "We talked about economic opportunity and how developed and developing markets around the world were broadening the participation of ownership, the democratization of capitalism," Grasso said. Critics of the FARC's peasant-based leadership say it is out of touch with the modern world and needs to better grasp how the international economy works as it prepares for formal peace talks, set to begin July 7. Grasso was invited to the unusual meeting, in a rebel-controlled area demilitarized by the government in November, by President Andres Pastrana. Pastrana has been vigorously seeking international support for a peace initiative that has been the hallmark of his 10-month-old presidency, but has yet to show significant progress. The FARC was formed 35 years ago by communist guerrillas and controls some 40 percent of the Colombian countryside. Although ostensibly Marxist, its ideologists say they don't oppose foreign investment or free market mechanisms as long as social justice is guaranteed. Grasso's meeting comes three weeks after Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., met with Reyes at the same location in a similarly unpublicized session. The FARC is on the State Department's list of international terrorist groups and the Clinton administration broke off all contacts with the rebel band after a FARC column murdered three Americans who were in Colombia helping out an indigenous group. Republicans in the U.S. Congress vehemently oppose contacts with FARC, which earns tens of millions of dollars annually in taxing the drug trade in this country that supplies most of the world's cocaine. Besides the narcotics connection, many Colombians and others skeptical of FARC intentions point to its continued belligerency. Despite sitting down for peace talks in the Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone, the FARC has refused to agree to a cease-fire -- or even to eventual disarmament. It has stepped up attacks over the past week, perhaps as a muscle-flexing prelude to peace negotiations, and killed at least 35 soldiers on Tuesday in yet another fiasco for Colombia's beleaguered military. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck