COLOMBIAN REBELS THREATEN TO SCUTTLE CEASE-FIRE OFFER

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The country's largest guerrilla group said Monday
it would reject a year-end truce offer unless the government stopped
extraditing drug suspects to the United States and extended benefits to the
working class.

The statement by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, comes just four days after a powerful car bomb killed eight people in
Bogota in what authorities took to be a drug mafia warning against
extradition.

Meanwhile, police said Monday that they suspected either drug traffickers
or guerrillas in the previous night's bombing of a regional office of
Colombia's largest newspaper.

Three workers were slightly injured and printing presses damaged by the
10-pound dynamite charge tossed at the Cali offices of the Bogota-based
daily El Tiempo, editor Alejandro Moya said.

In the FARC statement, read by comandante Ivan Rios to reporters in
southern Colombia, the group demanded the government "demonstrate patriotic
dignity and not approve the extradition of any more countrymen."

"The government should end the unseemly intervention in our country by the
United States of America," Rios said.

He also conditioned a cease-fire on immediate wage increases, debt relief,
and unemployment benefits for millions of laid-off Colombians.

The FARC has criticized the growing U.S. role in the Andean country, where
both the guerrillas and paramilitary groups take huge payoffs for
protecting cocaine and heroin production.

Following last week's bombing in an upscale north Bogota commercial
district, Pastrana signed the extradition papers of three accused
traffickers: a Colombian, a Venezuelan and a Cuban -- all wanted by the
United States. Thirty-nine more jailed drug suspects are wanted by Washington.