Plan for a 2nd Rebel Zone Announced
President Andres Pastrana announced a preliminary agreement with Colombia’s second-largest rebel army--the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN--to withdraw government troops from a northern region as a condition for opening peace talks. Pastrana, however, specified neither a timetable nor the geographical confines for the pullout zone. Pastrana granted the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a Switzerland-size southern region 17 months ago as a condition for launching peace talks that have proceeded at a snail’s pace--without a cease-fire.
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