COLOMBIA'S PASTRANA SLAMS MARXIST REBELS

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's slowing-moving peace process appeared on
the brink of collapse on Wednesday after President Andres Pastrana
heaped scorn on the rebel army he opened talks with 14 months ago and
said he would not accept ``peace at any price.''

Pastrana's strongly worded remarks came a week after the Marxist-led
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) sparked widespread
public outrage by saying they had approved a ''law'' to ``tax'' all
individuals and companies with assets of more than $1 million and
would kidnap those who failed to pay up.

``The FARC must not confuse a will for peace with weakness when it
comes to fulfilling my constitutional duties,'' Pastrana said in
remarks prepared for delivery in the northern province of Cordoba.

``The FARC has a moral obligation to carry out acts of peace that
restore confidence in the (peace) process,'' he said.

``Let it be clear,'' he said. ``This historic opportunity in Colombia
should not be lost. But peace at any price is something I cannot
conceive of or accept.''

The president's comments, his harshest yet when referring to
recalcitrant leaders of the FARC, also came a day after the rebel
group said it had absolved a feared commander accused by U.S. and
Colombian officials of ordering last year's brutal kidnap-murders of
three American activists.

Pastrana dismissed as ``nepotism'' and a travesty of justice the
declaration that the rebel commander, a brother of the FARC's No. 2
leader and chief military strategist, was innocent.

``Lowest Expressions Of ... Criminality''

``It's time for the FARC to realize that when they try to intimidate
society with their threats of kidnapping and extortion -- the lowest
expressions of corruption and criminality -- they are met with
collective contempt and rejection,'' Pastrana said.

Pastrana pulled security forces out of a Switzerland-sized area of the
southeast late last year as a confidence-building measure to lure the
rebel group into talks aimed at ending a conflict that has taken more
than 35,000 lives in the last decade.

But Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez warned in remarks to
reporters late on Tuesday that the region could be taken back by the
military if the FARC insisted on using it as a self-ruling enclave
and a springboard for kidnappings and military operations elsewhere in
the country.

Pastrana stopped short of threatening to retake the demilitarized
zone, where the FARC has dictated the glacial pace of peace talks
since January 1999. But he stressed that the land-for-peace deal was
something he had approved as ``a unilateral act of
generosity.''

And the embattled leader, who has been widely criticized for making
too many concessions to Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel
force, warned that his patience was wearing thin.

Pastrana's peace commissioner Victor Ricardo, architect of the peace
process with the FARC, stepped down abruptly last week just hours
after the rebels' threat to step up their already widespread practice
of kidnapping and extortion.

In his speech, Pastrana said he had ordered Ricardo's replacement to
press for a speedy cease-fire deal with the FARC that would include a
blanket ban on kidnapping and other illicit rebel financing schemes.

``This is what the Colombian people and international community are
crying out for,'' he said.