STATE DEPARTMENT DEFENDS MEETINGS WITH COLOMBIAN REBEL

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A recent series of meetings between a Colombian
rebel leader and a mid-level U.S. diplomat did not contradict State
Department policy of shunning contact with "terrorist" groups, a State
Department spokesman said Monday.

The Dec. 13-14 meetings brought together Raul Reyes, a leader of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and a State Department
envoy.

"We participated in this meeting to demonstrate our support for the
Colombian peace process," State Department spokesman James Rubin said,
adding that further meetings are possible.

Rubin denied that the encounter violated a U.S. policy of isolating
any of 30 groups it designated in late 1997 as foreign terrorist
organizations. The FARC is on the list.

"Nothing in this determination precludes the U.S. government from
meetings with the FARC or any other foreign terrorist organization if
we determine that such a meeting is consistent with our interests,
including bringing an end to Colombia's long-running civil conflict
and to the terrorist attacks that accompany it," Rubin said in Washington.

Rubin said the envoy pressed the FARC to account for several kidnapped
U.S. citizens and explained "that the U.S.-Colombian counter-narcotics
efforts, including aerial eradication, are nonnegotiable and will be
continued."

Washington says that as many as 70 percent of FARC rebel units are
involved in protecting coca and poppy crops vital to the cocaine and
heroin trades.

President Andres Pastrana of Colombia has said that FARC negotiators
tell him they will stop protecting coca crops if enough development
money arrives in drug-producing regions to offer alternative
livelihood to poor farmers.

Rubin did not identify the U.S. envoy, although another State
Department source said he was Phillip Chicola, director of the office
of Andean affairs.

FARC delegates traveling in Panama and Mexico have sought contact with
U.S. officials since early 1997, although December's meeting was the
first face-to-face encounter, sources said.

The December meetings were held in the home of Alvaro Leyva, a
conservative Colombian politician who lives in exile in San Jose,
Costa Rica, the sources said. Trusted by the FARC leadership, Leyva
has served as a go-between for upcoming peace talks, which begin
Thursday in the Colombian jungle town of San Vicente del Caguan.

The talks will kick off with a historic encounter between Pastrana and
legendary FARC leader Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda, who has not been
seen in public for more than three decades.