COLOMBIA'S REBEL DESCENDS ELUSIVE LEADER COMES FOR TALKS AFTER 34 YEARS

Colombia -- A rebel commander known as "Sureshot" comes down from the
Colombian
mountains today to talk peace 34 years after pulling together a
scraggly.'band of followers that turned into a powerful guerrilla
army.

Manuel Marnlanda's meeting with President Andres Pastrana in this
southern ranching town has raised hopes for an end to a conflict that
claims thousands of lives each year as well as prospects for stemming
Colombia's booming cocaine trade.

For most Colombians, it will be their first real look at the oldest
active guerrilla in the Americas, the founder and patriarch of the
powerful Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

A farmer's son with a sixth-grade education, Marulanda has come to
dominate Colombian political life. The leading newsmagazine, Semana,
recently crowned the man wanted for murder, kidnapping, terrorism,
rebellion and robbery as its 1998 "Man of the Year."

A month before his August inaugural, Pastrana flew to Marulanda's
jungle hideout, shaking hands with the guerrilla leader and the
proudly showing the photos to the nation. In November, Pastrana pulled
government troops from a rebel-dominated southern region the size of
Switzerland.

The rebels, who officials say have protected the drug trade, have made
no concessions. The group has indicated, however, that it might help
curb drug trafficking as part of a peace settlement.

So far, Marulanda's conditions for `peace include dismantling the
right-wing paramilitary groups that arose in response to guerrilla
kidnapping and extortion, and prisoner exchanges.

In the long term, he seeks rural wealth redistribution in a country
that has never seen agrarian reform and where the wealthiest 5
percent of the population earns 30 times more than the bottom 5 percent
intermediary between the government and the FARC.

Skeptics worry that the FARC is buying time before an all-out drive to
take power. Whatever the truth, the answers lie with its mysterious
leader.

Born Pedro Antonio Main, Marulanda took up arms in 1949 after
Conservative Party henchmen began slaughtering supporters of the
peasant-backed Liberal Party. Over a decade, 200,000 people died.

Marulanda co-founded the FARC in 1964, after government troops overran
the agrarian enclave he and other communist refugees called home.
Decades later, he has transformed the hit-and-run band into a
l5,000-member guerrilla army that controls roughly 40 percent of the
Colombian countryside. All the while, Marulanda has maintained a firm
grip on the organization, belying army efforts to portray him as out
of touch.

`What we re seeing is that all that was false, that effectively it is
Mamlanda who leads and that it is Marulanda who gives the movement
respect," said former government peace commissioner Daniel
Garcia-Pena.

Manilanda has never left Colombia, said biographer Arturo
A]ape.

In recent months, he has been holding court in jungle hideouts,
receiving lawmakers and government officials. Marulanda, they said,
is shy but an excellent listener

"He's a very concrete, the way peasants speak," said Senator Juan
Manuel Ospina, who has met twice with Marulanda. "If you get preachy
with him, he looks the other way."

During one meeting, Marulanda was dressed like the coffee farmer he
might have become -- white shirt, khaki pants, towel over the shoulder
for wiping sweat off the. brow, machete and holstered pistol on his
belt. At head, Alape said, Mani]anda is a warrior.