SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia (AP) -- A rebel commander
                  known as "Sureshot" is expected to come down from the mountains
                  Thursday to talk peace 34 years after pulling together a scraggly band of
                  followers that turned into a powerful guerrilla army.

                  Manuel Marulanda'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.

                  Although Marulanda, a farmer's son with a sixth-grade education, has spent
                  nearly a half-century in hiding, he has come to dominate Colombian political
                  life. The leading newsmagazine, Semana, recently crowned Marulanda its
                  1998 "Man of the Year", even though he is wanted for homicide,
                  kidnapping, terrorism, rebellion and robbery.

                  A month before his August inaugural, Pastrana flew to Marulanda's jungle
                  hideout, shaking hands with the guerrilla leader and then 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, which officials say have protected the drug trade, have made no
                  concessions. Marulanda has indicated, however, that he 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 top 5 percent earn 30 times more
                  than the bottom 5 percent, says Alvaro Leyva, the key intermediary between
                  government and FARC.

                  On Wednesday, guerrillas in street clothes with pistols tucked under their
                  shirts warily monitored the arrival of Pastrana's security contingent at San
                  Vicente's airfield, 60 elite police officers with automatic rifles. Some of the
                  erstwhile foes tentatively shook hands.

                  A dozen uniformed rebels later waited on the sweltering tarmac to greet
                  government negotiators. A FARC placard read "Welcome, we are people
                  of peace."

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

                  Born Pedro Antonio Marin, 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 15,000-strong 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 Marulanda
                  who leads and that it is Marulanda who gives the movement respect," said
                  former government peace commissioner Daniel Garcia-Pena.

                  Marulanda has never left Colombia, says biographer Arturo Alape. A tango
                  lover who played violin as a child, Marulanda has fathered at least seven
                  children out of wedlock.

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

                  "He's very concrete, the way peasants speak," said Sen. 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 heart, says Alape, Marulanda is a warrior.

                  When some lawmakers recently invited him to address Congress, he is said
                  to have told a subordinate: "If I do go address Congress, I'll have to do it in
                  uniform, for I am the commander of an army."

                  Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.