(Updates with details on hostage remarks, background)

By Jose Miguel Gomez

VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC guerrillas on Tuesday freed a former governor held hostage for more than seven years, the fifth captive released this week by Latin America's oldest surviving left-wing insurgency.

A Red Cross team swooped by helicopter into the jungles of southern Colombia to pick up ex-governor Alan Jara and ferry him to the town of Villavicencio where his weeping wife and son hugged the smiling politician as he stepped onto the tarmac.

The FARC freed three captive police officers and a soldier on Sunday and another handover is planned for later this week, fueling speculation that the weakened rebels want to recover political capital after a year of military setbacks.

Thin but in good spirits, Jara said a rebel chief gave him two minutes to pack before marching him seven weeks to the handover. After years in chains, suffering jungle diseases and dodging army bombs, fellow hostages cheered him as he left.

"Every one of those 2,760 nights in captivity was suffering," Jara told reporters after his release. "That humidity rots everything, and those out there in the jungle are rotting. We have to get them out."

But he criticized President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed security crackdown for failing to help hostages and for focusing on war instead of brokering negotiations with the guerrillas, whom he described as far from defeat.

"The FARC has made a gesture and there should be some response," he said.

Jara was last seen in photographs released a year ago along with letters from hostages describing rebel punishments, long marches and a diet of rice and jungle animals during years in bug-infested rebel camps.

Jara, who passed his captivity teaching English and Russian to other hostages, was abducted in 2001 when he was forced from a United Nations car by rebels who later accused him of ties to paramilitary death squads.

DEAL FOR HOSTAGES

His kidnapping sparked international outrage but guerrilla leaders refused to release him. He was one of two remaining politicians being held captive and was part of a group of around 20 high-profile hostages that FARC leaders say they want to swap for jailed rebels.

Guerrillas plan later this week to release Sigifredo Lopez, the only surviving member of a group of captive local lawmakers who were shot to death while in FARC captivity.

Jara's handover was delayed by a day after Uribe's government and a civilian commission who brokered Sunday's handover sparred over accusations military aircraft had pursued them. The government denied the charges.

Begun in the 1960s as a Marxist peasant army, the FARC has been sapped by desertions and the loss of top commanders as Uribe's U.S.-backed military retakes parts of the Andean country once plagued by bombings and massacres.

An army mission in July rescued a group of high-profile hostages the FARC had used as bargaining chips, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American contract workers held for more than five years.

Violence and kidnapping have eased, but the FARC remains a potent force. Rebels still hold scores of hostages for extortion and political leverage and were blamed for two urban bombings over the last week that killed at least four people.

Rebel commanders have said they want Uribe to pull troops back from an area the size of New York City to create a safe haven for talks over a broader hostage deal. But he refuses their terms saying that would allow the FARC to regroup. (Writing by Patrick Markey in Bogota; Editing by Kieran Murray)

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