U.S. questions will of rebels to join Colombian peace talks

The Miami Herald February 3, 1999 U.S. questions will of rebels to join Colombian peace talks

By TIM JOHNSON
Herald Staff Writer

             CARACAS -- Washington has yet to see any sign that rebels in Colombia are
             willing ``negotiate seriously'' with the Bogota government, and U.S. patience is
             wearing thin, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

``We're concerned,'' said Peter Romero, the acting chief of the State Department's
Office of Hemispheric Affairs.

Romero said the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) keep bringing up new issues, pushing substantive talks into the future.

             ``I think the government has demonstrated a willingness to sit down and talk and
             set up all kinds of strategies to accommodate the FARC. I haven't yet seen the
             same kind of positive signal [from FARC leaders],'' Romero said.

             FARC commanders announced Jan. 19 that they were suspending preliminary
             peace talks with the government -- until at least April -- so that President Andres
             Pastrana could show progress in taming right-wing paramilitary groups blamed for
             killing more than 240 civilians in early January.

             ``Why do they have to wait three months?'' Romero asked. ``I talked to President
             Pastrana this morning. His response is that they still are talking, not in the formal
             settings of working groups, but they still are talking. . . .

             ``There doesn't seem to be any forthrightness on the part of the FARC to sit down
             and negotiate seriously. Every time you look at it, you see other layers of issues.
             . . . There always seems to be something else to negotiate.''

The Colombian talks are watched closely by Washington because of deep guerrilla
involvement in the narcotics trade.

             Pastrana removed all soldiers and police from a Switzerland-sized area in
             south-central Colombia on Nov. 7 to pave the way for the talks. At the time, he
             said the demilitarization would last three months. He has yet to say whether he will
             prolong the demilitarization once the three-month period expires on Sunday.

In December, Romero told The Herald that he didn't want the demilitarized zone
to turn into ``FARClandia.''