COLOMBIA ADDS TROOPS AT REBEL ZONE AS DEADLINE NEARS

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 24 - The government has rushed hundreds of
troops to an area just outside a huge rebel-held territory, as
prospects of resuming peace talks by a Jan. 31 deadline border on
collapse.

President Andres Pastrana, who is traveling in Europe this week,
declared that he still held out hope of resuming negotiations, which
the rebels froze in November.

His other option, however, is to try to take back the land, a
territory in the south as big as Switzerland, that his administration
ceded in November 1998.

Mr. Pastrana is cutting short his trip and plans to return on
Saturday to deal with the crisis. Concerns about the crumbling peace
prospects have hurt the peso, which traded this week at a record low
against the dollar.

The leader of the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, Manuel Marulanda, has refused to budge despite the efforts
by the top government negotiator, Camilo Gomez, that are widely
described as intense.

Both sides have held sputtering talks about how and when to conduct
formal talks.

For two months, the rebels have insisted that they will not resume
the talks unless the government first controls an outlaw army of
paramilitary gunmen, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. That
group opposes the rebels.

Human rights groups accuse the paramilitary force of having ties to
the military. The Pastrana administration has said the army and the
police have indeed been focusing on paramilitary members, arresting
and killing fighters in death squads.

The troops are being dispatched a week before Mr. Pastrana has to
decide whether to take back the 16,000 square miles of jungles and
ranches under rebel control.

The police and soldiers were pulled out of the zone, in the hope of
creating a dialogue. But the talks have repeatedly stalled, and Mr.
Pastrana has extended the time limit on the rebels' use of the zone
six times, the latest on Dec. 6.

Many people here say the zone has merely served to let the rebels
fortify themselves. Indeed, the government has accused the rebel
force, the FARC, of using the land as a site to hold kidnap victims,
to recruit child guerrillas, to cultivate coca to buy arms and to
organize attacks on other regions.

Today and on Tuesday, C-130 transport planes flew in more than 600
reinforcements to the region, troops that could be positioned in an
arc from the northeast to the southeast of the zone, said an American
Congressional aide who is familiar with the Colombian military.

The reinforcements, which add to the 2,500 troops already stationed
outside the zone, are seen by some in Colombia as a sign that the
government has grown weary with the rebels and may retake the
territory when the expiration arrives.

But others knowledgeable about the conflict said wresting the zone
from the battle-hardened force would be difficult, at the least. The
Congressional aide, who has studied the military, said he believed
that the army was not ready to engage the rebels in a large-scale
operation.

An expert on the government and the military said he did not see what
choice Mr. Pastrana had if the insurgents remained recalcitrant. The
expert, Armando Borrero, who was the national security adviser under
Mr. Pastrana's predecessor, Ernesto Samper, said he believed that the
army might try a limited objective like taking over the center of the
five towns in the zone.

"How can you justify the clearance zone if there's nothing to show
for it?" Mr. Borrero asked. "I don't see any other way. His hands are
tied. The political costs would be enormous if he extends the zone."

Although under enormous pressure to act, Mr. Pastrana could still
save the peace effort, using military muscle to apply pressure on the
rebels, said Michael Shifter, an expert on Colombia at the
Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "I don't think there's a
contradiction between a stronger military force and pursuing the
peace process."

Mr. Pastrana knows all too well, experts said, that any military
offensive aimed at retaking the zone would carry a high cost for a
leader who has staked his presidency on bringing peace. Indeed, Mr.
Marulanda, the rebel leader, has said ending the demilitarized zone
would obliterate the chance at holding talks.

"If the status ends, where are we going to hold talks?" Mr. Marulanda
asked this week. "In that case, everything ends."