TRAFFICKING KEY TO TALKS, BOGOTA SAYS

BOGOTA---President Andres Pastrana says that ending the civil war that has
ravaged his country for nearly 40 years depends on the rebels' willingness
to help stamp out drug trafficking in areas under their control.

Mr. Pastrana's assessment came as he prepares to open talks with the
leftist rebels. The United States has strengthened his position by offering
substantial help in increasing military and police power.

The president, who took office five months ago, is siated to meet leaders
of the most powerful insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colornbia, known as FARC, on Thursday in the remote jungle town of San
Vicente del Caguan. The governmel1t evacuated security forces from an atea
as big as Switzerland to allow the talks to lake place, as the rebels
demanded.

In an interview Tuesday at the Narino Presidential Palace, the president
noted that U.S. aid has so far gone largely toward supporting police
efforts to halt drug trafficking, mostly through fumigation. Pushed by
conservative Republicans in Congress, Washington more than tripled aid to
Colombia recently, to $289 million this year from $88.6 million last year.

The State Department spokesman, James Rubin, announced this week that a
midlevel department official, Philip Chicola, had met secretly with rebel
leaders in Costa Rica to discuss their recent declarations of willingness
to eliminate drug crops in areas they control. Mr. Chicola also discussed
the rebels' policy on kidnapping foreigners and the fate or three missing
missionaries whom they are accused of having kidnapped five years ago.

"The first enemy of peace is narcotrafficking," Mr. Pastrana said. "If the
FARC takes the decision to eradicate drug crops, they'll do it. Because
they definitively have the influence to carry it out. "

He reiterated earlier criticism of U.S. policy as relying almost
exclusively on police tactics to fight drug dealing, and noted that some
lawmakers had an mterest in promoting war in Colombia. Under the current
budget passed by Congress, Washington plans to spend $10 million on crop
substitution in drugproducing regions, but $9 million of` the money will go
to Peru and Bolivia.

"In the U.S. Congress, there are those who believe that only through
repressive, policing measures can you put an end to this business, " Mr.
Pastrana said. " I maintain that for the first time ever, there ' s a
different window of opportunity . And it's that the guerrilla group is
saying it would agree to eradicate drug crops."

"It's the first opportunity we have to consider our policy of fighting drug
trafficking in a different way," he said. "Why not look at it?"