Colombia's Uribe orders rescue of rebel hostages
Source: Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Colombia's president, upset over a bombing he blamed on leftist rebels, on Friday broke off efforts to organize a prisoner swap and ordered the military to rescue hostages held by guerrillas in secret jungle camps. Families of the hostages condemned the move by President Alvaro Uribe as dangerous. Among the 62 hostages that were to be exchanged for rebels held in government jails are three American defense contractors and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Uribe's decision followed a car bombing on Thursday in Bogota that the government says was carried out by the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia, or FARC, whose 42-year-old insurrection is funded by cocaine smuggling. "The only path that remains is a military rescue," a visibly angry Uribe told reporters, saying the government had intercepted a telephone call from a rebel leader proving the FARC planted the bomb, which injured 10 people in the parking lot of Bogota's Military University. "We cannot continue the farce of a humanitarian exchange (of prisoners) with the FARC," he said. The move came less than a month after Uribe said he was willing to discuss a FARC proposal to withdraw government troops from a rural area almost the size of New York City to negotiate the exchange. The rebels kidnapped French-Colombian citizen Betancourt during her 2002 presidential campaign and Americans Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell during a 2003 mission to locate crops used to make cocaine. Mariana Howes, wife of Thomas, called Uribe's order for a military rescue "crazy." "He's going to kill my husband," she told Reuters. The rebels executed a group of hostages, including a former defense minister, during a botched military rescue in 2003. Thousands are killed in Colombia's guerrilla war every year. Uribe, a staunch Washington ally, has started talks with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and disbanded right-wing paramilitaries while peace with the 17,000-strong FARC remains elusive. Colombian peace negotiators entered a fourth round of exploratory talks in Havana with the ELN on Friday. They hoped to draw up an agenda for negotiations after a year of confidence-building meetings hosted by Communist Cuba, which inspired the ELN rebellion in 1964. (Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana)
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