STOCK EXCHANGE CHIEF MEETS WITH TOP REBEL COMMANDER

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange
explained markets to a senior leftist guerrilla commander on Saturday in
Colombia's steamy southern savannah -- and invited him to Wall Street for a
firsthand look.

Richard Grasso met for 1 1/2 hours with Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the remote hamlet of La Machaca.

Grasso told reporters afterward that the surprise meeting, his first with a
rebel chief, intended to demonstrate to FARC leaders the support of the
world financial community for Colombia's fledgling peace process.

Stressing that his talks with a group on the State Department's terrorist
list were strictly private, Grasso said he hoped his visit "will mark the
beginning of a new relationship between the FARC and the United States."

He said he invited Reyes to visit Wall Street to see for himself how the
markets work and also explained how Colombia would benefit from the
increased global investment it could expect if nearly four decades of civil
conflict can be ended.

"We talked about economic opportunity and how developed and developing
markets around the world were broadening the participation of ownership, the
democratization of capitalism," Grasso said.

Critics of the FARC's peasant-based leadership say it is out of touch with
the modern world and needs to better grasp how the international economy
works as it prepares for formal peace talks, set to begin July 7.

Grasso was invited to the unusual meeting, in a rebel-controlled area
demilitarized by the government in November, by President Andres Pastrana.

Pastrana has been vigorously seeking international support for a peace
initiative that has been the hallmark of his 10-month-old presidency, but
has yet to show significant progress.

The FARC was formed 35 years ago by communist guerrillas and controls some
40 percent of the Colombian countryside. Although ostensibly Marxist, its
ideologists say they don't oppose foreign investment or free market
mechanisms as long as social justice is guaranteed.

Grasso's meeting comes three weeks after Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., met
with Reyes at the same location in a similarly unpublicized session.

The FARC is on the State Department's list of international terrorist groups
and the Clinton administration broke off all contacts with the rebel band
after a FARC column murdered three Americans who were in Colombia helping
out an indigenous group.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress vehemently oppose contacts with FARC, which
earns tens of millions of dollars annually in taxing the drug trade in this
country that supplies most of the world's cocaine.

Besides the narcotics connection, many Colombians and others skeptical of
FARC intentions point to its continued belligerency.

Despite sitting down for peace talks in the Switzerland-sized demilitarized
zone, the FARC has refused to agree to a cease-fire -- or even to eventual
disarmament.

It has stepped up attacks over the past week, perhaps as a muscle-flexing
prelude to peace negotiations, and killed at least 35 soldiers on Tuesday in
yet another fiasco for Colombia's beleaguered military.