COLOMBIA'S PASTRANA SEES PEACE AHEAD

Leader Of War-ravaged Country Talks To Audiences In Houston

Peace will come to Colombia through negotiations with guerrilla insurgents
and economic recovery will be spurred by reform measures and international
cooperation, President Andres Pastrana Arango said Wednesday night.

"I'm convinced that we must achieve peace politically," Pastrana said.

"Our present circumstances are cause for concern, but not alarm," Pastrana,
45, said in his address to several hundred people gathered to hear him at
Rice University.

His government has met with members of the anti-government insurgency to
plan peace talks, he said, and now "we are on the road to recovery."

Pastrana, who was elected last year, said his government welcomes foreign
investment and has taken legislative action to assure that foreign
companies can succeed in Colombia.

To hasten recovery, Pastrana is seeking an aid package from various
sources, including the United States and other countries, to help develop
and maintain the financial, legal and government infrastructure to maintain
prosperity.

Pastrana spoke as a guest of Rice's James A. Baker III Institute for Public
Policy. After addressing student, faculty members and other guests,
Pastrana received the President's Award for Distinguished Public Service
from Rice University President Malcolm Gillis.

Gillis emphasized the public may not be aware of the "striving people" of
Colombia that Pastrana represents.

Edward P. Djerejian, director of the Baker Institute, said Pastrana's
speech was significant because it reflected a long-term strategy for
development and peace that previous administrations had not been ready to
propose.

Earlier Wednesday, speaking at the Inter American Press Association
conference in Houston, Pastrana reaffirmed his government's commitment to
civil liberties.

He said he and his government "will do whatever necessary to see that
crimes against journalists are punished under all the power of the law."

Pastrana was in Houston this week in part to reassure investors that he is
working to end the country's 35-year civil war.

He also presented his plans to boost investment in the nation, which is
undergoing its worst recession in more than 70 years, brought on by low
prices for oil and coffee, the nation's biggest exports.

After much delay, negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, begin Sunday. Next year, Pastrana hopes to initiate
negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Just last weekend ELN bombed two more oil pipelines in the eastern region
of Colombia operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp., Bloomberg News reported
Wednesday.

Pastrana said he will try to convince the rebels that such actions simply
hurt the 40 million people of Colombia and have little impact on the
profits of foreign investors.

Pastrana told more than 400 business leaders at a Greater Houston
Partnership-sponsored luncheon that Colombia is not simply a land being
torn apart by guerrillas who fund their activities by dealing drugs, as
portrayed in the news.

"When I watch the global news or read the international press, I sometimes
wonder if the country portrayed is the same one I have lived in all my life
and was elected to govern," Pastrana said.

Part of his recently unveiled Plan Colombia includes a $7.5 billion program
to fight drug production and to teach farmers they can make more by on
other crops, such as palm oil. Colombia plans to spend $4 billion on the
plan and has asked the United States and the international community for
the other $3.5 billion.

He also outlined changes in the country's oil policy, which includes a cut
in the profits foreign investors must share with Ecopetrol, the state oil
company.

That was welcomed by Robert Hefner, chairman and managing director of
Houston-based Seven Seas Petroleum. He said he considered scaling back the
company's operations in Colombia, but the reforms have prompted
consideration of expanding drilling operations.

The company has invested $140 million in Colombia since 1992 and has had no
security problems, primarily because it drills in northwestern Colombia,
far away from guerrilla activities.