REBEL CONTROL OF LARGE ZONE IN COLOMBIA IS EXTENDED

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 6--Despite flagging support for his peace
efforts, President Andres Pastrana opted today to give the nation's
largest rebel group an eight-week extension on the demilitarized zone
that the government ceded to the rebels two years ago.

Mr. Pastrana had until midnight to decide whether to let the rebels
keep control of the zone--totaling 16,000 square miles in southern
Colombia, the size of Switzerland--or retake it by force. With the
extension, Mr. Pastrana is banking that government negotiators will
be able to restart peace talks that have been all but dead since
mid-November, when the rebels froze the talks to protest what they
said was the government's inability to control right-wing
paramilitary forces.

The extension will last until January 31, said Camilo Gomez, the
government's lead negotiator. "It is clear the extension is aimed at
resolving the frozen dialogues and to advance humanitarian accords
that we had been working on," he said.

Mr. Gomez cautioned, however, that the extension came with
conditions, namely restrictions on the entry of people and supplies
into the demilitarized zone.

News of the extension was made public about 15 minutes before
midnight, after Mr. Pastrana met with members of the Colombian
Congress, government ministers and foreign ambassadors, including
Anne Patterson of the United States.

"It's not an easy decision, but the president has a strong commitment
to the peace process," Ms. Patterson said. "We all agree that a
negotiated peace is the only way for Colombia."

Mr. Pastrana's decision comes two years after his government, hopeful
that the 36-year war could be ended, created the zone for the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. In November 1998,
the government pulled 2,500 troops out of the area in Caqueta
Province.

But that area has become a political liability for Mr. Pastrana. As
peace talks sputtered, rebel attacks across the country mounted, many
of them started from inside the territory, the government has said.

The rebels are also accused of forcefully recruiting teenage fighters
who lived in the zone and using the territory as a safe place to hold
kidnapping victims. This week, a Colombian newsmagazine reported that
Venezuelan military officials visited FARC leaders inside the zone,
without Colombian government approval. Colombian and United States
government officials have also accused the FARC of reaping millions
of dollars inside the zone by taxing coca farmers and drug
traffickers and running coca-processing labs.

During his visit to Colombia last month, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the
United States drug policy coordinator, said that what happened in the
FARC-controlled area was predictable.

"It has been turned into an armed bastion of the FARC," Mr. McCaffrey
said. "They're building roads, airfields. They're processing cocaine."