SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia (REUTERS) -- Colombia's
                  leading Marxist rebel army will control a vast swath of territory around this
                  town in the country's southern jungle and savanna for at least another six
                  months, a government official said on Saturday.

                  The Switzerland-sized safe haven was ceded by President Andres Pastrana
                  to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November of
                  last year to jump-start a peace process aimed at ending the country's
                  long-running guerrilla war, which has taken more than 35,000 lives over the
                  last decade.

                  The territorial handover was set to end next Tuesday, when Pastrana
                  theoretically could have poured government troops back into the 16,000
                  square mile (42,000 sq km) area.

                  But Victor Ricardo, the government's chief peace negotiator, told reporters
                  Pastrana had extended the deadline for the troop pullout until June 7 of next
                  year.

                  A government resolution, giving the government's official blessing to
                  prolonged rebel control over the enclave, was signed by the ministers of
                  justice, defence and the interior as well as by Pastrana himself, Ricardo said.

                  The deal creating "Farclandia," as some have taken to calling this dusty cattle
                  town and four other municipalities from which Pastrana has withdrawn
                  security forces, is highly controversial and prompted the resignation in May
                  of Rodrigo Lloreda, the government's widely respected former defence
                  minister.

                  No ceasefire deal has been reached as part of the slow-moving peace
                  process. And military officials argue that the supposed demilitarized zone has
                  become a garrison from which the FARC's estimated 17,000 fighters can
                  launch attacks across the country.

                  Adding to the controversy over the FARC's control over the safe haven is
                  the fact that it is located near one of Colombia's richest coca producing
                  regions, the raw material for cocaine.

                  Officials say the drug trade is one of the FARC's main sources of financing
                  for its war against the state, together with a nationwide campaign of
                  kidnapping, extortion and banditry.

                  Plans by Iranian investors to build a meat packing and storage facility in San
                  Vicente have also caused some alarm, amid recent media reports that the
                  FARC had hired military advisers or explosives experts from Tehran.

                  Iranian embassy officials in Bogota have staunchly denied the reports.

                  The FARC and smaller National Liberation Army have sharply escalated
                  their attacks against population centres this year, even as the country's
                  fledgling peace process moves forward.

                  According to a report issued by the army Friday, the two rebel groups
                  raided 67 towns and villages in the first 11 months of 1999 compared to just
                  27 attacks during the same period last year.

                  In the latest of their attacks -- which are typically carried out under cover of
                  darkness -- the FARC's seasoned fighters killed seven civilians including an
                  older woman and a local television cameraman in an overnight raid Friday on
                  the town of Gigante in southwest Huila province.

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.