Pubdate: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company Contact: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036 Fax: (212) 556-3622 Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Juan Forero SOME HOPEFUL SIGNS AS COLOMBIA MEETS WITH REBELS AND ENVOYS BOGOTA, Colombia, March 10 -- When the government ceded land to Colombia's largest rebel group in 1998 as a peace gesture, the rebels declined to allow international monitors into the area. And in two years of peace talks, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has been cold to the idea of foreign participation in peace talks. So when the rebels met with envoys from 25 countries on Thursday and agreed that a small group of nations could serve as facilitators in future peace negotiations, diplomats and analysts celebrated. The rebels' acceptance of a group of observer nations, analysts said, is a sign that a rebel group long suspicious of foreign involvement is open to some degree of international participation in the peace efforts. "Little by little, the idea of international participation is growing on them; I think it's a forward step in the process," said Daniel Garcia- Pena, the government's former peace negotiator. "You have to remember that the FARC is very rural, very nationalistic. For them, the United Nations is an organization led by the Yankees." The foreign diplomats, meeting with the rebel leader Manuel Marulanda and government negotiators deep in rebel-held territory, agreed to create a 10- nation group that would meet with the rebels and the government every two months. The group -- to consist of Cuba, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela -- would not have a direct role in peace negotiations. And Mr. Marulanda continued to insist that a resolution to Colombia's 37- year-old conflict could only be achieved by Colombians. Still, despite the group's limited role, diplomats and analysts said the new development was good news for a peace effort that has been marked more by broken promises and unilateral walkouts than fruitful dialogue. "The important thing is that now there are international mechanisms to track the peace process in Colombia," said Jan Egeland, United Nations special envoy to Colombia. The visit by the envoys was agreed upon last month, during an extraordinary meeting between President Andres Pastrana and Mr. Marulanda designed to restart peace negotiations. The envoys, all diplomats or ambassadors, came from Europe, Latin America, Japan and Canada; the United States declined to attend. Many of the countries represented are opposed to American military aid to Colombia, which makes up most of a $1.1 billion United States contribution to Plan Colombia. Foreign governments, particularly the Europeans, have pledged hundreds of millions in loans and grants for social development projects. The meeting on Thursday provided the rebels with a forum in which to stress the importance of development aid. The rebels' hope, experts said, was to prod for an expansion of such assistance and to sway foreign governments against American plans for military aid to Colombia's government, said Vicente Torrijos, a political scientist at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota. The rebels were also able to express their frustration with defoliation of coca, Colombia's military buildup and the ties between paramilitary killers and the state security forces. "It was a chance for them to give their side of the story," said Russell Crandall, an American political scientist in Bogota. The gathering also gave the international community the chance to raise concerns about the rebels' use of homemade bombs, its recruitment of child soldiers and its dependence on kidnappings to finance its war. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake