BOGOTA, March 9 (Reuters) - Colombian left-wing guerrillas have freed two police officers held since last month after they were snatched at an illegal rebel roadblock, the Red Cross and police said on Friday.

The two officers were kidnapped on Feb. 28 when rebels stopped the bus they were traveling on in rural Cauca Province in southern Colombia, where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC is active, police said.

"FARC-EP handed over the police officers, Edwin Perez and Carlos Jeferson Munoz, to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross," the aid agency said in a statement.

Violence and kidnapping from Colombia's four-decade-old guerrilla war have dropped sharply since President Alvaro Uribe began a U.S.-financed campaign to drive back the rebels, combat drug-trafficking and disarm illegal militias who once fought the insurgency.

But the FARC is still fighting in rural areas and is holding hundreds of politicians, civilians and soldiers hostage, some for years, including three U.S. contract workers captured in 2003 on a drug eradication mission.

Uribe and the FARC are deadlocked over possible talks on releasing kidnap victims for jailed rebel fighters in a humanitarian exchange.

The release comes two days before U.S. President George W. Bush, on a five-nation tour of Latin America, visits Bogota to support Uribe.

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