[So Grasso was one in a series in a Pastrana roadshow]
Financial Times, March 5 2000
AOL Chief Meets Colombia's Farc Rebels
Efforts to end Colombia's long armed conflict took an usual step in the dotcom world yesterday when one of the founders of America Online, the internet giant, met Latin America's most enduring band of Marxist rebels.
James Kimsey, now AOL's chairman emeritus, visited the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), the country's largest guerilla group, in southern Colombia.
The meeting came about after contacts between Mr Kimsey and Colombia President Andres Pastrana and was not the first time Colombian authorities have enlisted a hihg-profile business figure to meet the Farc. Last June Richard Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, also made the trip to the Switzerland-sized area controlled by the guerrillas, where peace talks are taking place.
Such visits are aimed at helping to bring peace by persuading the Farc of the merits of coming out of the jungle and into the globalised world, emphasising how Colombia could be improved by foreign investment if fighting were brought to an end.
James Wilson, Bogota
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com