Nov 22 (Reuters) - Colombia has pushed Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez out of negotiations with Marxist guerrillas to free hostages.

Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe had asked Chavez to mediate hostage swap talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America's oldest insurgent army.

But Uribe ended the Chavez's mediation after the outspoken Venezuelan leader broke protocol by seeking information directly from Colombian armed services commander Mario Montoya.

Here are some key facts on the politicians, soldiers and police held hostage by the FARC.

* The FARC began as a peasant army in the 1960s. Uribe has pushed the FARC onto the defensive with his U.S.-backed security campaign. But the group is still fighting, kidnapping and, the government says, trafficking in cocaine to finance their operations.

* French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans captured more than four years ago are among dozens of key hostages the FARC wants exchanged for jailed rebels. Some have been held for nearly a decade in secret jungle camps.

* Betancourt was snatched in 2002 while campaigning for the Colombian presidency. She was taken along with her assistant, Clara Rojas, traveling on a rural road. Neither has been heard from since 2003, but the FARC says they are alive. Rojas had a son, Emmanuel, while in captivity.

* Three U.S. Defense Department contract workers -- Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves -- were kidnapped when their aircraft crashed on a counter-narcotics mission. They were last heard from in 2003, but a police officer who escaped from the rebels said he saw the men and Betancourt at a camp in April.

* The FARC wants Uribe to pull troops back from a New York City-sized rural area to create a safe haven for hostage swap talks. Uribe had agreed to a proposal from Spain, France and Switzerland for a meeting zone. But he refuses to demilitarize a large area under FARC conditions saying it will allow rebels a safe zone to regroup.

* French President Nicolas Sarkozy in June persuaded Uribe to release a top jailed rebel, Rodrigo Granda, in an effort to break the deadlock over hostages. Sarkozy met with Chavez in Paris this week to discuss efforts at freeing Betancourt and the other kidnap victims. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein in Bogota, Editing by Brian Ellsworth and Sandra Maler)

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