COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT WARNS ON TALKS

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - President Andres Pastrana has threatened to break
off peace talks if there is solid evidence Colombian guerrillas are
trafficking drugs.

"The government of Andres Pastrana does not negotiate with drug
traffickers," Pastrana said in the interview published Sunday in El Tiempo,
Colombia's leading newspaper.

U.S. and Mexican officials have alleged recently that the country's largest
rebel group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
has expanded beyond taxing and protecting local drug production and is now
smuggling drugs internationally.

The rebels say they are fighting for democracy and social justice - not
drug criminals. Pastrana has agreed with them, rejecting charges that he is
bargaining with "narco-guerrillas."

But "if clear and direct evidence is found that the FARC ... are involved
directly in drug trafficking, like a drug cartel, there will not be
negotiations," Pastrana told El Tiempo.

Negotiations between Pastrana and the FARC began two years ago to resolve a
36-year conflict that kills some 3,000 people a year.

In November, Mexico's attorney general accused the FARC of trading cocaine
for cash and possibly weapons with a Mexican drug ring. Top U.S. officials
have referred to the FARC recently as a "cartel" with international operations.

The rebels, along with rival right-wing paramilitary militias, control
large cocaine-producing regions in the south. But the FARC maintains it
only "taxes" poor peasant farmers who grow drug crops.

The accusations of FARC drug smuggling come on the eve of a U.S.-backed
Colombian military offensive to eradicate coca crops and cocaine processing
laboratories under guerrilla control.

The FARC has vowed to fight the offensive, expected to get into full swing
as soon as January.

On Saturday, Pastrana said peace negotiations could also unravel if
investigators find that FARC rebels were behind Friday's killing of a
prominent lawmaker involved in the peace process along with six others,
including his mother.