BOGOTA, May 11 (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe

on Friday said he was considering the "massive liberation" of

imprisoned guerrillas to prompt rebels to free hostages they

have held for years, including three U.S. contract workers.

The statement is the latest attempt to break the deadlock

between Uribe and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or

FARC, the nation's largest guerrilla group, which keeps

hundreds of hostages as part of its 40-year insurgency.

"They should be prepared, because if the law allows I am

going to have a massive liberation of FARC prisoners and let's

see if they are capable or not of freeing our kidnap victims,"

Uribe told local radio without giving details.

Financed by a multimillion-dollar U.S. aid package, Uribe

has pushed back the guerrillas, sent troops to retake parts of

the country and demobilized paramilitary gangs. Violence and

bombings have decreased, but the hostages remain a key issue.

Among those held by the FARC are French-Colombian dual

national and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt,

who was snatched in 2002, and the three Americans seized after

their aircraft crashed on an anti-drug mission in 2003.

The FARC, which started as a peasant army fighting social

injustice in the 1960s, often kidnaps for ransom and political

leverage and is engaged in the country's cocaine trafficking

business.

In 2004, Uribe released 23 guerrillas from prison in a

gesture to the rebels. The FARC wants to exchange 61 key

hostages for hundreds of jailed fighters.

Uribe has ordered troops to hunt down rebels holding

captives in secret jungle camps, but says he is open to talks

once the FARC show an act of good faith.

The guerrillas want him to withdraw troops from an area the

size of New York City to facilitate negotiations. But

authorities fear the FARC will use the area to rearm and

regroup as it did with a similar initiative in the 1990s.

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