BOGOTA, March 30 (Reuters) - Colombian negotiators will meet with the country's second biggest rebel group next month for a six-week session aimed at establishing the foundation for an eventual peace deal, the government said on Friday.

Colombia has been talking on and off with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, since late 2005. Preliminary negotiations have taken place in Cuba, where the next session is set to start the second week of April, a statement from Colombia's High Peace Commissioner said.

The 5,000-member ELN was organized in 1964 by radical students and Catholic priests inspired by Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution. The group relies on extortion and kidnapping for its finances and still holds about 300 hostages.

Colombian novelist and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of Latin America's most popular figures, is participating in the talks to help ensure they end successfully, the statement said.

Thousands are killed in Colombia's war every year. Colombia's biggest rebel force, the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rejectes President Alvaro Uribe's conditions for starting negotiations.

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