BATTLING IN COLUMBIA BUT TOURING TOGETHER IN EUROPE

BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb. 27 - Officially, peace talks between the Colombian
government and the largest rebel group are stalled, with no date set for
them to resume. Yet just the other day, the government's chief negotiator
boasted that "we have advanced further this month than in 40 years of
conflict."

That apparent paradox is the result of an unusual new twist to efforts to
negotiate an end to a civil conflict that has killed 35,000 Colombians just
in the last decade. Army troops continue their confrontation on the
battlefield with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known
by its Spanish acronym as Farc. But at the same time, a delegation with
representatives from each side has spent most of February touring Europe
together.

The unconventional arrangement has been described by Victor G. Ricardo, the
government's chief peace negotiator, as an effort to build confidence and
trust between the adversaries while "coming to know the models of friendly
countries." At each stop along the way, the joint government-guerrilla
delegation has met with officials, intellectuals, aid donors, religious
leaders and journalists, often issuing a joint statement afterward.

Last summer, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange visited leaders of
the rebel group at their jungle stronghold in San Vicente del Caguan. The
Colombian government explained the move as part of an effort to "educate"
the guerrillas, whose main leader has been fighting in the bush for more
than 50 years, about the modern world and its ways. The European trip,
which included stops in Norway, Sweden, Italy, the Vatican, Switzerland,
Spain and France, seemed motivated in part by the same desire.

At the very least, the guerrillas have been exposed not only to European
social democracy but also to a barrage of criticism of their involvement in
drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and human rights violations. The
implication is that if Europe is ever to view the group as an insurgency
with legitimate political goals, as it did Central American guerrillas in
the 1980's, it must change its behavior.

Perhaps as a result, some experts here say they have detected a slight
shift of position by the group on the question of a cease-fire. Though the
guerrillas have always said fighting would continue until at least 80
percent of the negotiating agenda had been resolved, RaFAl Reyes, the
leader of the rebel delegation, has suggested the group might be willing to
call a halt to hostilities at an earlier stage.

The rebels have also softened the tone of their criticism of links between
government security forces and right-wing death squads, which they
previously had contended were one and the same. "We know that the president
has not created the paramilitary groups and that he wants to combat them,"
Mr. Reyes said in Paris last Thursday. A day later, he added, "Fortunately,
it is not the entire army but only a part of the military that participates
in this."

A few optimists like LeF3n Valencia, a columnist for El Tiempo, the main
daily here, have even suggested that the ties being developed between the
two sets of negotiators have created an opening to international mediation
of the conflict. The rebel group has a reputation here for xenophobia, and
just last summer rejected a government request that international monitors
be sent to the zone where the government ceded them control in the hope
that it would speed peace talks.

Indeed, such a mediator already appears to be in place. The United Nations
Secretary General, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Jan Egeland, a former
deputy foreign minister of Norway, as his special adviser on the conflict
here. Colombians welcomed the move because of the crucial role Norway
played in peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and, more
recently, the government of Guatemala and guerrillas there.

But since taking office 18 months ago promising to bring peace, President
Andres Pastrana has often been criticized for conceding too much to the
rebel group, including control of a chunk of territory the size of
Switzerland, without receiving anything in return. For those and other
critics, the European tour, which ended over the weekend, has provided
plenty of new ammunition.

"This has been like the formal presentation of an unruly debutante to
polite society," said Alfredo Rangel Suarez, a former national security
adviser to the Colombian government. "It reinforces the Farc's legitimacy
as a counterweight to the government, strengthens their image in the eye of
Colombian public opinion, and lifts the morale of their combatants in the
field."

The government has repeatedly refused to grant the rebel group formal
recognition as a belligerent. But with the government and rebel negotiating
teams traveling and meeting European governments together, Mr. Ricardo, the
peace negotiator, is in practical terms both conceding the rebels that
status and saying he recognizes them as his partners in peace efforts.

But even as the European tour was taking place, the United States Congress
has been considering a Clinton administration request for $1.6 billion in
emergency assistance to Colombia. The largest single component of that
proposed package, which the rebel group has condemned, consists of 63
helicopters for the Colombian armed forces and police, intended to allow
them to operate in coca-growing areas that the rebels dominate.

Criticizing the Clinton administration package, the director of the United
Nations counterdrug program here, Klaus Nyholm, described it last week as
"a lot of stick and very little carrot." Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat
of Vermont, has expressed similar concerns at recent hearings in
Washington, estimating that 79 percent of the aid package is destined for
the Colombian military.

But from the Colombian government's point of view, that would be precisely
the utility of the American aid. It would be only one part of a much more
ambitious $7.5 billion program that the Pastrana administration calls Plan
Colombia, which contains proposals both to curb the narcotics trade and to
bring about economic and social development.

So while Mr. Ricardo escorted the rebels around Europe, another Colombian
government delegation met with European governments seeking nearly $1
billion in aid for the "carrot" part of Plan Colombia. One benefit of the
rebel tour, then, was that it permitted the Colombian government to remind
potential European donors that it is up against dogmatic guerrillas with a
blinkered view of the world and little sense of politics other than from
the barrel of a gun.

In dealing with Washington, a senior government official said here on
Friday, the Pastrana administration constantly needs to remind the United
States that while "we are going to fight drugs," the peace efforts are also
vital.

But because "Europe thought it strange we have a peace process and a
counterdrug strategy in the same package," he added, there is also a need
to "tell Europe the opposite": that while negotiations are essential, "you
cannot address the causes of violence without addressing drug trafficking."