Financial Times - June 28 1999
NYSE CHIEF MEETS COLOMBIAN GUERRILLAS By Adam Thomson in Bogotá
Richard Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, travelled to Colombia at the weekend to sell capitalism to the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), a leftwing group that has a tradition of targeting US interests in Colombia.
Mr Grasso spent several hours with Raúl Reyes, a Farc commander, in a guerrilla-controlled area to the south of the country. From July 7, the area is to become the venue for the first concrete peace negotiations between the 15,000-strong Farc and the Colombian government.
"The message that we took to Commander Reyes is that Colombia is a country of great opportunities, and that foreign capital will look for those opportunities if there is stability," said Mr Grasso.
Despite the imminent negotiations, Colombia's 35-year armed conflict is intensifying, and the resulting instability is worrying investors. In recent weeks, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, the US rating agencies, have indicated that the conflict could lead to the country losing its investment-grade rating.
Mr Grasso, who emphasised that he was representing the private sector and not the US government, described his conversation with Mr Reyes as "warm" and "open". They discussed the world economy, globalisation and how developing markets were increasing their ownership of capital.
"We told him that they [the Farc] must understand that the private sector and capital markets are very hopeful that the conversations which start in July produce and positive and lasting peace," he said.
Mr Grasso invited Mr Reyes and Andrés Pastrana, Colombia's president, to visit the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate peace.
External links:
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia <http://burn.ucsd.edu/~farc-ep/> New York Stock Exchange <http://www.nyse.com/>
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Wall Street Journal - June 28, 1999
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BIG BOARD CHAIRMAN MEETS REBEL LEADER IN COLOMBIA IN EFFORT TO AID PEACE PROCESS
By Thomas T. Vogel Jr. and Mary Morrison Staff Reporters of the Wall Street Journal
BOGOTA, Colombia -- The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange ventured into the jungles of southern Colombia to deliver a message of free markets to a leftist leader of the hemisphere's most powerful rebel group.
Richard Grasso flew by helicopter Saturday to the tiny town of La Machaca in the middle of an isolated zone controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Two other Big Board officials, Colombia's economy minister and several other government officials accompanied Mr. Grasso.
The stock-exchange executive spoke for 90 minutes with Commander Raul Reyes, one of FARC's highest-ranking leaders. "We talked about economics, capital markets and how peace translates into economic opportunity for Colombia," said Mr. Grasso in an interview.
Mr. Grasso was invited to visit Colombia by President Andres Pastrana after a spate of mass kidnappings and violence forced the president to cancel a visit to the Big Board earlier this month.
"When I called to cancel the trip, Mr. Grasso asked me if he could do anything to help," recalled Mr. Pastrana yesterday. "So I asked him to come down and talk to these people about what's happening in the rest of the world."
During the visit, the stock-exchange executive and the guerrilla leader talked about "how the peace process of Colombia is perceived on Wall Street," said Economy Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, who served as translator for the meeting. The two men talked about "how Colombia's economy could grow more quickly and foreign investments would increase with peace," added Mr. Restrepo.
"I gave him a tutorial on what's happened in the U.S. in terms of this democratization of capitalism," said Mr. Grasso. "One of the messages I wanted to emphasize is how we have a nation with almost 200 million people who own shares," explained Mr. Grasso. "With indirect ownership, literally everybody in America is a stockholder."
Mr. Grasso said his words were well received. "It was a very good meeting overall." He said Mr. Reyes appeared to be "interested in learning what alternative investments could be made in Colombia once peace is achieved." Mr. Grasso added that the rebel commander "was very concerned about the narrow focus, the narrow perception that Colombia is purely looked upon as a narco-traffic economy ... he was much more in tune than you would have expected."
The Big Board chairman also invited Mr. Reyes to visit the stock exchange. "He seemed reasonably intrigued," said Mr. Grasso.
President Pastrana is pushing for a peace agreement with Colombia's guerrilla groups after nearly 40 years of conflict. The president is also campaigning for more foreign investment in Colombia to help end the nation's worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Origins of FARC
FARC, formed in the early 1960s by communist guerrillas, is Colombia's largest and oldest guerrilla group. It is on the State Department's list of international terrorist groups. The U.S. government has said that it broke off all contacts with the rebel band after FARC guerrillas murdered three Americans in Colombia earlier this year. The group earns tens of millions of dollars a year from kidnapping, extortion and protection of Colombia's illegal drug trade. Over the past year, the group has handed Colombia's military a stunning string of humiliating defeats. In recent years, the leftist group's leaders have indicated a greater openness to free-market ideals as long as social justice is guaranteed.
This isn't the first visit by a U.S. citizen to FARC territory. Just three weeks ago, Congressman William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, met with Mr. Reyes in a similar visit to the region.
"We are very aggressive in trying to pursue international markets and opportunities," explained Mr. Grasso in the interview. "The entirety of the Latin American landscape is a very promising one for us."
Mr. Pastrana, who has met with FARC leaders several times himself, insisted that Mr. Grasso was in no immediate danger during the trip. "This was the president of capitalism" in FARC territory, said Mr. Pastrana. "He knew that I wasn't going to put him in any danger."