U.S. DIPLOMAT TRIES TO ALLAY INVASION FEAR IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Seeking to calm Colombians' fears that U.S.
military intervention is imminent, a senior State Department diplomat
on Tuesday called such speculation "totally false, totally crazy."

Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering said Washington had not
given up on President Andres Pastrana's faltering attempts to bring
leftist guerrillas to successful peace talks.

"It's going to take a sustained, long-term effort," said Pickering,
the third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat to visit Colombia in half a
decade.

Pickering acknowledged that the U.S. State Department has serious
reservations about whether Colombia's largest leftist insurgency is
entering peace talks in good faith, but he said Washington fully backs
efforts for a negotiated solution to Colombia's 35-year civil conflict.

Invasion rumors `crazy'

"The canard floating around is that the United States is about to
introduce a military intervention in Colombia. It is totally false,
totally crazy, totally in my view irrelevant to the situation," he
said. "The stories floating around about a dramatic change in the
situation are just not true."

Washington is providing $289 million in assistance to Colombia this
year, making it the third-largest recipient of foreign aid after
Israel and Egypt.

Moreover, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey has suggested that aid
to Colombia be increased to as much as $600 million.

Some Colombians view the increased aid as a sign that Washington seeks
to establish a greater military presence than the 200 U.S. soldiers
usually in the nation at any one time. A major news weekly, Cambio,
devoted an issue late last month to what it described as pending U.S.
intervention.

No covert military action

U.S. officials traveling with Pickering emphasized that the United
States is not slipping covertly into military involvement in Colombia

"There's nothing nefarious going on here," said Peter Romero, the
acting assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs.

After six hours of meetings with Pastrana, Pickering described the
44-year-old Colombian leader as "very impressive" and "a guy who is
engaged and fully in charge of details."

Pickering said Pastrana and his top aides deeply believe that they
should forge ahead with peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a rebel group of 15,000 to 18,000 combatants.

"The Colombians . . . believe there's life in the process," he
said.

Whether the guerrillas are negotiating in good faith "is a question
that we asked the Colombians, and it is a question we ask ourselves.
We don't have a 25-cent answer on that one," he said.

Concessions to rebels

Pastrana came to office a year ago promising to pursue a peace
settlement with the FARC at nearly any cost. Nine months ago, he
demilitarized a Switzerland-sized region of the nation as a refuge for
the guerrillas. In a process that has exasperated many Colombians, an
agenda has been set for peace talks but the actual negotiations have
been twice postponed.

"The question that we have to ask ourselves is, `Has there been
sufficient action to make the process worthwhile?' and I think we are
on the border on that particular issue," Pickering said. "We have seen
processes that were desultory, moribund and nonproductive for years
sometimes turn around and produce results."

Pickering said that Colombia's internal strife, while dramatic, is not
out of control.

Progress anticipated

"We have an opportunity and not, I think, a howling crisis," he
said.

"Colombia is an extremely important country, and a very important
region for the United States," Pickering said. "It is one of the four
countries that we have taken a look at that in our view, while in
difficult situations, do have a real opportunity to make progress in
the area of building a more stable democratic future for
themselves."

The other three countries are Indonesia, the Ukraine and Nigeria, he
added.