Agreement Envisions Formal Cease-Fire Accord by April 7

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 20 -- Colombia's largest guerrilla army and the government established a specific timetable today for cease-fire talks, a step that
international mediators hailed as significant progress toward ending the country's nearly four-decade civil conflict.

The agreement, announced just hours before President Andres Pastrana's midnight deadline for an accord to be reached, calls for the two sides to begin discussing
such intractable issues as an end to guerrilla attacks on civilians, kidnapping for ransom and paramilitarism -- a phenomenon that poses perhaps the biggest military
threat to the rebel army. The agreement envisions that by April 7 the two sides should be ready to sign a bilateral cease-fire accord in a war in which 3,000 people
were killed last year.

To keep negotiations on track, the two sides agreed to establish an international commission to mediate disagreements and monitor each side's compliance with
promises made at the peace table. In addition, Colombia's political parties and civic leaders will be invited to the peace talks over the next few weeks to participate in
what promise to be turbulent negotiations.

"They have achieved a firm, defined structure to begin discussing real themes that have an effect on these people and this country," said James LeMoyne, the U.N.
special peace envoy for Colombia, who worked tirelessly to pull the process back from the brink of collapse. "The way ahead is not free of stones, and peace will
not be achieved tomorrow. But now we have a real chance to achieve it."

After accepting a rebel offer to continue a deteriorating peace process last week, Pastrana demanded that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC
as the country's largest Marxist insurgency is known, agree to a negotiating schedule designed to end a variety of guerrilla military actions. If they did not, Pastrana
promised to send his army into the 16,000-square-mile rebel haven in southern Colombia that he created three years ago as an incentive to begin negotiations.

"Today, we have something we have never had before," Pastrana said in an address tonight, referring to a timetable with specific dates and themes. He also extended
the Switzerland-size safe haven until April 10.

The talks were held in the village of Los Pozos inside the safe haven about 200 miles south of this capital.

Besides bringing some rigor to discussions that have lacked discipline in the past three years, the timetable could provide a framework to continue peace talks after
Pastrana leaves office in August. Pastrana's urgency to begin cease-fire talks also reflects a broader shift in his approach toward the war.

Until now, Pastrana had endorsed negotiating peace in the midst of worsening war, even though much of the public has turned against the process. But in speeches
this past week, Pastrana adopted a new approach that would require the FARC to cease "hostilities" to continue a peace process that many believe has allowed it to
increase troop strength, military training and a profitable coca-protection business inside the haven.

"Negotiating in the middle of conflict is finished," Pastrana said last week.

The timetable ends the deep uncertainty that has clouded peace talks since Jan. 9, when Pastrana declared an end to negotiations. He gave the FARC 48 hours to
abandon the five towns in the safe haven, a deadline later extended to allow international mediators a chance to save the process. At the time, negotiations had been
stalled since October, when Pastrana imposed new security controls just outside the zone that prompted the guerrillas to leave the peace table.

As thousands of troops took up positions to retake the zone, FARC negotiators agreed Jan. 12 to drop demands that the government remove those checkpoints.
The rare rebel concession came just hours before Pastrana was scheduled to send in the army.

But Pastrana immediately imposed a new deadline of today for guerrilla negotiators to agree to a timetable for cease-fire talks or lose the demilitarized zone. Recent
negotiations have been accompanied by a spike in guerrilla military activity, a tactic the FARC has used before previous deadlines as a way of reminding Pastrana
and the country of its military capability.

In the past week, the FARC bombed an important bridge leading into the demilitarized zone, ambushed a squad of army soldiers and shot down a U.S.-donated
UH-1N transport helicopter that was escorting an herbicide-spraying mission. About 35 people died in the fighting, most of them members of the armed forces.

The guerrilla attacks were a reminder that although the Colombian military is vastly improved, in part because of a $1.3 billion package of mostly military U.S. aid, it
still faces an uphill battle against a seasoned 18,000-member guerrilla force that relies on hit-and-run tactics. Alfredo Rangel, a military analyst and adviser to the
Defense Ministry, wrote in the newspaper El Tiempo that "the recent strengthening of the military by the state, as important as it has been, is still insufficient."

Among the primary obstacles to a cease-fire agreement is how each side defines a cease-fire, an argument that also highlights how each side views the war.

The government wants the FARC to stop attacking towns and troops, and halt the kidnapping and extortion it uses to raise much of its money. The FARC,
meanwhile, contends that a cease-fire must include a government pledge to stop privatizing state businesses and agencies, to suspend extradition of Colombian
nationals, and to provide subsidies to the country's growing pool of unemployed.

Discussions about dealing with Colombia's unemployed are scheduled to take place before the April 7 target date for a truce. But perhaps more important to the
FARC, the government also agreed to discuss the issue of paramilitarism.

Unlike the FARC, the paramilitary army, known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, does not enjoy political recognition by the Pastrana government
and so has no formal place at the peace table. The group frequently works alongside the military, with which it shares a common enemy, and has successfully
challenged the guerrillas in some of Colombia's most strategically important regions.

Paramilitary leader Carlos Castano has said his group would stop all military actions if the guerrillas agree to a cease-fire. But analysts said that the specific cease-fire
terms would likely determine whether Castano would do so.

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