BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombia's second-largest rebel group said
                  Tuesday it was suspending talks with the government, throwing the already
                  faltering peace process into deeper confusion.

                  National Liberation Army (ELN) leader Nicolas Rodriguez said he may even
                  wait until the next government takes office in 2002 before resuming
                  negotiations to end the long-running war.

                  The larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had already
                  suspended talks with President Andres Pastrana until late April and warned it
                  would pull out altogether if he does not crack down on ultra-right death squads
                  waging a "dirty war" against rebel sympathizers.

                  Between them, the two guerrilla armies have wrested control of about 40
                  percent of the national territory in a campaign that has killed more than 35,000
                  in the past decade. Founded in the early 1960s, they have grown in strength to
                  the point that U.S. officials warned last year that they could take power by
                  force in five years and already threaten regional stability.

                  Pastrana took office in August with a pledge to make the quest for peace his
                  top priority. The apparent collapse of his centerpiece policy has drawn fresh
                  accusations from the guerrillas and political opponents that the government has
                  no real peace strategy.

                  Government rejects demilitarization

                  "Talks with this government are paralyzed. Hopefully we can find a real will
                  for dialogue later in this administration or in the next government," Rodriguez,
                  known by his alias "Gabino," said in an interview with the RCN radio network.

                  "We don't see any sense in having a fresh meeting just to hear the government
                  reiterate the same position it has already made known," he added.

                  A day earlier, government peace commissioner Victor Ricardo met the ELN's
                  No. 2, Antonio Garcia, in Caracas in a failed effort to set terms for a first
                  meeting in Colombia between rebels, government officials and civic leaders.

                  The ELN demanded the government pull out all troops from four municipalities
                  in a war-torn region of northern Bolivar province to allow the so-called National
                  Convention to go ahead. That would mirror concessions the government made
                  in parallel peace talks with the FARC.

                  But in a communique issued on his return to Bogota on Monday night, Ricardo
                  said there would be no pullout for the ELN and offered only a temporary
                  cease-fire in a single municipality during the convention.

                  While the two sets of negotiations are "equally important," Ricardo told RCN,
                  "It is not conducive for peace for the insurgent groups to resort to
                  comparisons."

                  In its negotiations with the FARC, Latin America's oldest and largest rebel
                  force, the government demilitarized a Switzerland-sized region of southeast
                  Colombia for an initial 90 days. The demilitarization has been extended until
                  May 7, but no negotiating agenda has been set; and even though FARC chiefs
                  and the government are due to meet again April 20, there is no guarantee full
                  talks will resume.

                  Waiting for U.S. certification?

                  The government's peace policy "is nothing but handing over territory and
                  concessions without end," said former armed forces chief Gen. Harold
                  Bedoya, who would rather try to defeat the guerrillas on the battlefield.

                  "There's no clear line, no strategy," said Horacio Serpa, head of the opposition
                  Liberal Party, after discussing the peace process with Pastrana.

                  Some analysts believe the government may be ready to make fresh
                  concessions by demilitarizing more territory -- to breathe new life into the
                  peace process -- once the United States has made its annual decision early
                  in March on which countries to approve as allies in the war on drugs.

                  The analysts say the government fears it may risk being blacklisted by
                  Washington if it effectively hands over to the rebels vast swaths of
                  countryside where illegal drug crops are rife.

                  Both U.S. and Colombian officials accuse the FARC, set up as a pro-Soviet
                  force in 1964, and to a lesser extent the ELN of close ties to the drug trade.

                  If it were decertified, Colombia would face stiff economic sanctions.

                  308,000 displaced in 1998

                  The war has had an enormous economic and social cost for Colombia.

                  Civilians have found themselves in the cross fire in provinces such as oil-rich
                  Arauca, where the ELN routinely bombs oil pipelines and both groups kidnap
                  people to extort money from foreign companies .

                  A refugee agency reported that more than 500,000 Colombians had fled their
                  homes over the past two years due to violence by the guerrillas, the army and
                  the rightist paramilitary groups.

                  Jorge Rojas, director of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement,
                  said 308,000 people were displaced in 1998, a 20 percent increase over the
                  257,000 the previous year. The majority of the displaced flee to large cities
                  already overwhelmed by rapid urbanization.

                  Like international human rights groups, the guerrillas argue that the
                  paramilitary groups, which now total some 5,000 fighters, are part of an
                  undercover official counterinsurgency backed by the armed forces.

                  The national alliance of paramilitary gangs, known as the United Self-Defense
                  Forces of Colombia (AUC), massacred more than 140 people in five
                  provinces over four days in January when the government began peace talks
                  with the FARC.

                  In comments to RCN radio, Rodriguez said the ELN may be prepared to hold
                  its national convention outside Colombia, possibly in Spain, Venezuela or
                  Norway.

                  But he said in that case the rebels would meet only with religious, business,
                  labor and grass-roots leaders and not with Pastrana or other government
                  officials.

                                    Reuters contributed to this report.