URIBE HINTING AT TALKS WITH FARC

President Alvaro Uribe Has Softened His Hard-Line Rhetoric And
Signaled He Wants A Prisoner Swap With Colombia's FARC Rebels -- And
Perhaps Even Peace Talks

BOGOTA - Despite a strong mandate validating his first four years of
waging all-out war against leftist rebels, Colombian President Alvaro
Uribe has opted for a more peaceful beginning to his second term.

Since his inauguration in August, Uribe has reached out to leaders of
the hemisphere's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia or FARC, by offering to swap imprisoned rebels for
kidnapped politicians, citizens and soldiers in guerrilla hands.

"The result of this security campaign can't just be of scorched
earth, killing guerrillas and putting at risk our soldiers," Uribe
said on local radio this week, referring to his so-called Democratic
Security plan. "This policy of Democratic Security is a way to
achieve total reconciliation among us Colombians."

The seeming about-face by Uribe comes just months after the president
and his allies won landslide victories in this year's presidential
and congressional elections. The elections were seen as a validation
of Uribe's policy to strengthen the country's armed forces and
police, and launch unprecedented military offensives in various parts
of the country, which forced the guerrillas to seek hiding and
lowered rebel violence and kidnapping rates.

But results in the war have been waning of late. Uribe also has been
hit by scandals in the military and recent reports that the
production of coca, the raw material for cocaine, continues apace
despite years of concerted attack on what many consider the principal
funding source for warring groups in this country of 42 million people.

"Initially, Uribe insisted on ending the guerrillas by fighting
them," said former Inspector General Jaime Bernal Cuellar. "But now
he has two things going against him: the impossibility of winning the
war against the guerrillas, and the polls that show the majority of
Colombians are for a prisoner swap."

Yet, some analysts say Uribe has always had it in his mind to
negotiate. Uribe has already negotiated with right-wing
paramilitaries - - who also fought the guerrillas -- leading to the
demobilization of more than 32,000 illegally armed troops and the
surrender of the group's top commanders.

Uribe also began preliminary peace talks with guerrillas from the
country's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army,
or ELN, in Cuba.

"At the end of the day, Uribe is a political realist," said Fernando
Cubides, a sociology professor at the National University in Bogota.

Impossible Task

"Inside he knew that a military defeat of the guerrillas was never a
possibility. What he wanted was to strengthen the state for an
eventual negotiation."

Regardless of when the president's plan began, Uribe officially
authorized his peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, this week to
contact FARC commanders to begin negotiations on the prisoner swap.

The FARC is holding 59 Colombian politicians, police and soldiers as
well as three United States military contractors it captured after
shooting down their airplane in 2003. The government is holding some
500 rebels in jails across the country.

One of the FARC's prisoners is Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian and
French national and former presidential candidate here, who has
sparked European nations such as France, Switzerland and Spain to
take a strong interest in backing the swap.

The United States, however, has been playing coy -- stating only that
it supports the liberation of all kidnap victims. Still, the State
Department has declared the FARC a terrorist group, and U.S.
officials have always said they are against negotiating with terrorists.

What's more, there are several guerrillas in United States' prisons
facing drug trafficking and kidnapping charges, and the Justice
Department has recently stepped up its efforts to indict FARC members
at large in Colombia for drug trafficking, money laundering,
kidnapping and terrorism.

For its part, the FARC has made a point of mentioning two of these
U.S.- based rebel prisoners as part of the possible prisoner swap.

Rebel Demands

The guerrillas have also demanded the demilitarization of two
municipalities to make room for the negotiations and possible deal,
something the government seems unwilling to do. Uribe's predecessor,
Andres Pastrana, demilitarized an area in the south the size of
Switzerland to negotiate with the FARC.

The guerrillas used the territory to talk peace, but also to regroup
and retrain, hold kidnap victims and launch attacks on nearby
military sites and police stations.

"It cannot be a zone of refuge for crime," Uribe said of the area
where talks may take place. "It can't be a point to regroup for
terrorist acts that serve to put political pressure [on us]."

Uribe's recent declarations in favor of a prisoner swap have
surprised some and consoled others. Others have seen a transformation
of the president since he began his tenure in 2002.

"I see a lot of change with regard to his rhetoric, especially toward
the FARC," Fabiola Perdomo, the wife of a local assemblyman taken
hostage by the FARC in 2002, said of Uribe. "He's become more flexible."

So flexible, in fact, that Uribe has even mentioned the possibility
that a prisoner swap could lead to peace talks and possibly a
National Assembly, which the FARC has long demanded.