COLOMBIAN LEADER TESTED BY REBELS, TIME

BOGOTA -- After 2 1/2 years of peace talks, President Andres Pastrana has
realized his first concrete achievement with Colombia's largest guerrilla
insurgency: an exchange of sick prisoners. But building on that agreement
- -- expanding it into an effective truce -- will severely test his power and
political skill in the 14 months remaining in his presidency.

The maneuvering for next year's presidential election has begun, and the
focus is now on potential candidates and their stands. This, some analysts
say, is rendering Pastrana's remaining time in office increasingly
irrelevant. And hard-line elements within the military are limiting him to
small, symbolic steps with the guerrilla forces, who in a surprise move
last week gave the president a boost by promising to free more than 150
additional captive police officers and soldiers held in jungle camps.

The biggest test now is whether Pastrana can begin talks with Colombia's
second-largest leftist guerrilla insurgency, the National Liberation Army
(ELN). The talks are supposed to take place in a northern region that was
selected last year, but which has since been overrun by the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary force whose leaders share
with the military a determination to defeat the leftist guerrillas. The
military, the chief beneficiary of a $ 1.3 billion U.S. aid package to
Colombia, has failed to take on the paramilitary group for control of the
strategic region, leaving it largely out of government hands.

Many diplomats here fear that unless Pastrana secures the area, the ELN and
the larger leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), will conclude that he cannot carry out promises made at
the peace table. Several diplomats have begun asking the United States to
take a direct role in the peace process to help keep the military in line,
saying that Pastrana's pledge to help end Colombia's civil war may be
doomed if he is unable to start the ELN talks.

"The next months may well determine whether Colombia closes this tentative
experiment with two peace processes and moves into an extended period of
increased military activity and terrorism," said a Western diplomat here
involved in the peace process.

Pastrana has succeeded since his 1998 election in patching up poor
relations with the United States and bringing international attention to
bear on Colombia's conflict, which involves the two armed leftist guerrilla
groups, the growing rightist paramilitary force and the army. The armed
groups of the left and right all profit greatly from Colombia's drug trade
and use the income to finance their struggle.

[On Wednesday, Pastrana said he had asked rebel groups to observe a truce
while Colombia hosts the 12-nation America Cup soccer tournament next
month, news agencies reported.

[The appeal follows the kidnapping of the Colombian Soccer Federation vice
president -- Hernan Mejia, one of the tournament's organizers. The South
American Soccer Confederation said that Monday's abduction of Mejia
"endangered the holding of the cup" in Colombia.]

Pastrana has been given high marks from European diplomats and human rights
groups for his peace efforts. But his public support has declined sharply
as the war has intensified and the FARC has become more powerful. There
were 25,660 homicides in Colombia last year, making violence the leading
cause of death.

Pastrana may have set public expectations too high when he began formal
talks with the FARC for the first time in almost a decade, diplomats say.
They added that perhaps he would have been more successful if he had tried
to achieve smaller breakthroughs at the outset rather than continuing
negotiations for years without reportable successes.

Diplomats and analysts here say Pastrana, facing a quickening campaign to
replace him and lacking significant public support, will likely be limited
to small gains with the guerrillas even though a quarter of his term
remains. Although a cease-fire was among the first items to be taken up
after Pastrana and the FARC leader, Manuel Marulanda, restarted talks in
February, diplomats say that goal is likely out of reach.

Instead, diplomats involved in the talks say the government will push the
FARC to stop several internationally condemned tactics, including the use
of child soldiers, homemade bombs made from spent gas cylinders against
civilians and mining of rural roads. Any agreements could help extend the
process into the next president's term, a top priority of the diplomatic
community here.

Marulanda appeared mindful of Pastrana's predicament last week when he
agreed to free 163 more members of the Colombian security forces than
called for in a prisoner exchange accord that took more than six months to
reach. The FARC received 15 sick guerrillas in return, and Marulanda's
well-received gesture was viewed by some analysts as a sign that he was
hoping to strengthen Pastrana's hand at a difficult time.

Complicating matters is the unusually early start of the presidential
election season, a symptom of Pastrana's perceived weakness. Pastrana is
prohibited from running again, but the incipient campaign is becoming a
referendum on his peace process. The election will be held in two rounds
starting in May.

The Liberal Party candidate, Horacio Serpa, a former peace negotiator, and
Noemi Sanin, an independent candidate and former foreign minister, have
been cagey about how they would approach the peace process. But both have
generally signaled a tougher line with the FARC.

Alvaro Uribe Velez, the former governor of Antioquia province whose father
was killed by the FARC, has staked out the toughest position. Uribe favors
ending the peace process in its current form and arming civilians.

During much of his term, Pastrana has been trying to strike a balance
between the two very different views held by his international patrons on
how to end Colombia's war.

On one side, the U.S. government has promoted through its aid package a
largely military solution, involving U.S.-trained troops and spraying
herbicide on the drug crops that finance the armed groups. Pastrana's
European patrons, however, have largely condemned the U.S. position,
favoring new social investment to strengthen Colombia's traditionally weak
government institutions.

Increasingly, diplomats here are calling for the United States to take a
more active role in Pastrana's peace efforts.

U.S. policy has been one of passive support for Pastrana's peace efforts,
even though a senior U.S. official described him as "the best ally we have
had in Colombia for a long, long time." Although worried that Pastrana
might sacrifice elements of the anti-drug plan to preserve peace talks with
the rebels, a U.S. diplomat said "we support the peace efforts covertly,
overtly and in any other way."