COLOMBIA'S FIRST ROUND OF TALKS ENDS WITH NO CEASEFIRE

COLOMBIA: The first session of the long delayed negotiations between the
Colombian government and leftist rebels ended yesterday without a ceasefire
but with a new round of talks set for next week.

Negotiators for President Andres Pastrana asked the rebels for a ceasefire -
which the vast majority of Colombians support - but so far they have refused
to consider it until the negotiations have progressed "substantially."

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are the nation's oldest,
largest and best-armed rebel group. It has fought the government for 35
years and views its massive firepower as the only way to guarantee a peace deal.

As the peace talks opened on Sunday, an estimated 10 million Colombians
poured into streets around the country in support of peace and an immediate
ceasefire.

But in a joint statement, the government and FARC said only that they
reiterated their "desire and intent to work on the agenda for change toward
a new Colombia and the mechanism for citizen participation in the peace
process at the negotiation table, that allows us to agree on appropriate
conditions for finding a negotiated political solution to the Colombian
conflict."

The two sides have agreed to meet again on November 2nd. The first session
ended after only three hours of talks at a primary school in Uribe, a remote
town in the south of the country, part of a zone the size of Switzerland
controlled by the guerrillas. - (AFP) Mark Duffy adds from Bogota: In a
reference to the recent decline in foreign investment in Colombia - mainly
due to the continued violence and the government's inability to guarantee
security for foreign companies operating here - the chief government
negotiator, Mr Victor Ricardo, said: "there must be investment for peace, we
cannot wait until there is peace in order to invest".

Mr Ricardo was echoing the words of President Andres Pastrana last week
during his tour of the US and Europe to drum up support for the government's
ambitious Plan Colombia which seeks to gain $3.5 billion in aid for the
ailing economy. Mr Raul Reyes, the chief spokesman for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), called for a complete overhaul of the
social and judicial systems. He also said that it was necessary to implement
a system of crop substitution for the peasant farmers in the demilitarised
zone, which happens to be the principal coca leaf and opium poppy growing
area of the country.

Colombia supplies 80 per cent of the world's cocaine and nearly 60 per cent
of the heroin reaching US streets. One of the more difficult points on the
talks agenda is the question of extradition. Just two weeks ago Colombian
and US authorities arrested 30 leaders of drug cartels. All of them face
extradition to the US.