U.S. WIELDS CARROT AND STICK IN COLOMBIA

Mixed Signals Surround Push For Peace

CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) -- The United States is
heaping praise on Colombia's fledgling peace process, even as it
signals a readiness to take the leading role in its fight against
Marxist rebels.

Those mixed signals to a nation whipsawed between talk about peace and
growing fears of all-out war were voiced by senior U.S. officials on a
visit this week to the historic Caribbean port city of Cartagena.

The officials, led by U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and Marine
Gen. Charles Wilhelm -- commander of U.S. military operations
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean -- were in Cartagena for a
three-day meeting of defense ministers from across the Americas. The
meeting ended Wednesday.

Colombia's role as host country -- a nation corroded at the highest
levels by corruption, drug trafficking and a three-pronged war pitting
Marxist rebels against the armed forces and right-wing paramilitary
groups -- cast a spotlight on one of the hemisphere's undisputed
trouble spots. But there was U.S. praise for efforts to end the violence.

"This is a time when the government of Colombia is showing its good
will in leaning forward and trying to create the conditions for a good
negotiation," Cohen told a news conference.

"Clearly we will see how the guerrillas, over the next 90 days or so,
how they react to what we think has been a very positive step by
President (Andres) Pastrana," said Cohen, adding that Washington
warmly applauded Pastrana's peace efforts.

'Announcements of war'

Pastrana, who succeeded Colombia's scandal-plagued former leader
Ernesto Samper four months ago, campaigned on a promise to seek a
negotiated settlement of an internal conflict that has taken more than
35,000 lives over the last decade.

But Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda, speaking on the
sidelines of the three-day Cartagena meeting, said that Pastrana's
peace overtures had only been met with rebel "announcements of war,"
and patience is clearly wearing thin. Some analysts think South
America's second most populous country, which supplies about 80
percent of the world's cocaine, is headed toward full-scale war.

Cohen did not elaborate on Washington's likely response if peace talks
with the rebels should fail.

Calling the shots

But an agreement establishing a so-called "defense bilateral working
group" was signed at the Cartagena meeting, giving Washington broader
powers to call the shots on key military issues between the United
States and Colombia.

Wilhelm said the agreement highlighted the already close ties between
the U.S. and Colombian militaries, and stressed in remarks to
reporters that there were no real restrictions on U.S. military aid to
Colombia.

The bulk of U.S. aid -- of which Colombia recently became the world's
third largest recipient after Egypt and Israel -- goes toward
counternarcotics assistance.

But Wilhelm said it also could be used to fight guerrillas -- since
they work in what he called a close alliance with criminal drug gangs
and are a self-sustaining "narco-insurgency."

Wilhelm, who served as a U.S. adviser in Vietnam, denied that the
United States was getting sucked into another unwinnable conflict
against a deeply entrenched rebel movement, which now controls about
40 percent of Colombian territory.

But a senior U.S. official stressed the U.S. commitment to combating
insurgents in Colombia -- where Wilhelm conceded that the military
lost the momentum in the guerrilla war long ago.

"We have an interest in helping a democratically elected government
protect itself," said the official, who asked not to be identified by
name. "Obviously, if Colombia is destabilized, over the longer term it
has implications for its neighbors and for the region," he said.

Shakespeare

Pastrana ordered the pullout of some 2,000 troops early last month
from an area the size of Switzerland in a bid to jump-start peace
talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the
hemisphere's largest and oldest rebel force.

But formal talks have yet to begin, due to FARC demands for the
pullout of about 100 soldiers still stationed in the largest town in
the demilitarized area.

And FARC's chief military strategist, Jorge Briceno, shocked
government officials this week by demanding that troops abandon an
additional seven municipalities just outside the demilitarized zone,
saying civilian residents of the towns would suffer the consequences
unless control was effectively ceded to rebel troops.

"All this talk about peace is going nowhere," one Colombian defense
official said. "It's like that play by Shakespeare, 'Much Ado About
Nothing.'"

Checked-by: Patrick Henry