PASTRANA FACES DECISION ON HELPING LEFTIST REBELS

BOGOTA, Colombia - With a deadline looming on whether to continue peace
talks with leftist rebels, President Andres Pastrana faces a skeptical
public and U.S. accusations of deepening guerrilla involvement in the drug
trade.

Mr. Pastrana must decide by Thursday whether to authorize continued rebel
rule over a vast southern region the government ceded two years ago to spur
negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or (FARC).

Taking back the demilitarized zone from the FARC could require heavy
fighting and would probably be the death knell for negotiations begun in
January 1999 to end this country's 36-year-war.

Mr. Pastrana has made peace his government's top priority, and has already
extended the DMZ several times since pulling some 2,500 troops from the
region in November 1998, just prior to the beginning of the talks.

Most observers expect him to do so again - even though the FARC recently
declared a "freeze" on negotiations. Lengthy meetings took place Friday
between a presidential peace envoy and top FARC commander Manuel Marulanda
to seek a solution to the impasse.

With negotiations yielding few results to date - and accusations mounting
that the FARC has used its safe haven to harbor kidnap victims, launch
attacks, and smuggle cocaine - public sentiment is against further
government generosity.

Seventy-six percent of Colombians believe Mr. Pastrana should take back the
DMZ unless the talks get back on track, according to a poll published
Sunday in the country's leading newspaper, El Tiempo.

Eighty-three percent of Colombians do not believe the FARC sincerely wants
peace, according to the opinion survey carried out in major cities, which
had a 3.7 percent error margin.

While refusing to question Mr. Pastrana's peace strategy, U.S. officials
launched a barrage of accusations last week of FARC involvement in cocaine
trafficking.

A State Department spokesman on Wednesday backed recent allegations by
Mexico's attorney general that the FARC has supplied cocaine to a major
Mexican cartel in return for cash and possibly weapons. The spokesman urged
the FARC to sever its ties to the drug trade.

The rebels admit they finance their operations in part through a "tax" on
peasant farmers who grow drug crops. But the FARC denies any involvement
further up the international drug trafficking chain of operations.

Growing rebel and paramilitary involvement in the drug trade is one of the
main justifications behind a $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package for
Colombia.