BOGOTA (Colombia): Swaying along bumpy roads to Colombian peace talks with Marxist rebels, tour buses packed with foreign diplomats must pass a garish billboard-sized drawing of a US boot crushing Latin America.

US envoys will not be offended by the massive sign because they will not see it. They are not on the pilgrimage to peace talks.

Analysts and diplomats say the Marxist propaganda is an ironic reminder that until the United States is ready to join the increasingly international peace effort, a lasting accord to end Colombia’s 38-year-old guerrilla war is unlikely.

In the coming months, envoys from the UN, the Roman Catholic Church and 10 other countries will head into the FARC rebel stronghold in a bid to clinch a long-awaited cease-fire accord by April 7.

Even a temporary respite to the conflict will likely involve appeasing FARC demands over US foreign policy. “I think some progress can be made (without the United States), but there is a limit to how far it can go,” said Michael Shifter, vice-president of the Washington-based think tank, Inter-American Dialogue.

The United States, long wary of being dragged into Colombia’s 38-year-old guerrilla war, has refused to join peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since FARC rebels killed three US Indian activists in 1999.

The US has earmarked more than $1 billion in mainly military aid for the government’s “Plan Colombia” anti-drug offensive, while branding the rebel force drug traffickers and terrorists — a term that has taken on heavier significance since the Sept 11 attacks.

The FARC wants the United States to scrap its definition of the guerrilla group as narco-terrorists, saying in a flurry of recent communiques that the label could herald a US strike in Colombia under President George W. Bush’s global war on terror.

It also wants an end to what it sees as interventionist US-backed spraying of drug crops and training of elite anti-drug troops often operating in rebel-held areas.

The international community came to Colombia’s rescue twice in the past month, first resurrecting talks on Jan. 14 by convincing the FARC to back down on security demands and again on Sunday with the cease-fire timetable.

Analysts and diplomats believe that bringing international facilitators into Colombia’s peace process could help reduce distrust between rebels and the government.

They point to the pivotal role diplomats played over the past decade in Central American peace processes, like in Guatemala and El Salvador.

—Reuters