BOGOTA, Dec 20 (Reuters) -- The army on Sunday began pulling the last
                  120 soldiers out of a vast swath of southeastern Colombia-- an area the size
                  of Switzerland-- removing the final obstacle to the start of peace talks with
                  Marxist rebels.

                  A Hercules military transport plane airlifted documents, computers and
                  weapons out of the jungle town of San Vicente del Caguan while the first
                  detachment of 50 troops headed out by road to Florencia, regional capital of
                  Caqueta province.

                  The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the oldest and
                  largest rebel group in the hemisphere, had called on the government to
                  withdraw all security forces from five towns covering 16,000 square miles
                  (41,000 square km) as a condition for starting the first peace talks in six
                  years.

                  Colombia has been torn apart by an increasingly bitter civil conflict for more
                  than 30 years. The war, which pits leftist guerrillas against government
                  troops and ultra-rightist death squads, has killed more than 35,000 people in
                  the last decade alone and has forced a million civilians to flee their homes for
                  fear of being caught in the cross fire.

                  "You should not leave with sadness at abandoning a military installation but
                  with joy that you're taking part in opening the way to exploring the paths of
                  peace with the insurgents," government peace commissioner Victor Ricardo
                  told 120 conscripts on Sunday.

                  He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the troops' departure from the
                  barracks in San Vicente, the largest town in the demilitarized zone.

                  The troop pullout is set to last until Feb. 7 and was originally due to have
                  been completed by Nov. 7. But the government went back on its deal with
                  the FARC to pull all troops out of the region, arguing that the remaining
                  soldiers must stay for "logistical" reasons.

                  The FARC, however, insisted that the soldiers leave and refused to begin
                  formal negotiations on the grounds that rebel chieftains would not be safe if
                  military personnel remained in the zone.

                  Last week, Ricardo announced that President Andres Pastrana and veteran
                  FARC leader Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda would attend an official
                  ceremony to start the peace negotiations on Jan. 7.

                  Some political analysts believe the government will find many of the FARC's
                  demands hard to stomach, including calls for sweeping agrarian reform, an
                  end to unfettered free-market economic policies and a radical redistribution
                  of wealth.

                  Critics of the process say the FARC will run the demilitarized zone as a
                  self-ruling enclave, or "independent republic," smuggling out drugs and flying
                  in weapons purchased with the proceeds of drug trafficking.

                  A report on Sunday in the respected newspaper El Espectador said the
                  FARC had purchased sophisticated Russian-made surface-to-air missiles
                  from former Salvadoran guerrillas.

                  The report, based on unnamed U.S. security sources, said the missiles had
                  been sited in guerrilla strongholds around the country.

                  Intelligence reports that the rebels have acquired SAM missiles are not new,
                  but even if true, the guerrillas have never used the weapons in combat here.

                   Copyright 1998 Reuters