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BOGOTA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Anti-kidnapping campaigner Ingrid Betancourt paid a surprise visit to Colombia on Saturday at the start of a regional tour to try to jump start hostage talks with the leftist rebels who kept her captive for years.

It was her first trip to Colombia since leaving after her stunning rescue from FARC guerrillas in July.

The French-Colombian politician, who was snatched by the rebels while running for president in 2002, plans to travel throughout South America to increase international pressure on the FARC to free the hundreds of hostages they still hold.

"It is important that we can keep counting on (regional leaders) to help us look for a way, an opening, that will allow for the liberation of those who remain behind," Betancourt told a Bogota news conference.

But she said she had no open channels for communicating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC.

Betancourt met late on Saturday with President Alvaro Uribe and is scheduled in the days to come to visit Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Argentina.

Betancourt was chained up in bug-infested jungle camps, her health often in peril, until Colombian security forces duped the rebels into turning her and 14 other captives over in a daring rescue operation.

She has lived in Europe since July. As late as Friday, she told reporters that her children, fearing for her security, had asked her to not return to Colombia and that she had agreed to stay out of the Andean country for the foreseeable future.

She will be transported in armored cars and be escorted by more than 20 bodyguards while in Colombia, police said.

Betancourt led a march in Madrid on Friday against kidnapping. Thousands in Colombia and cities as far away as Beijing also marched and held candlelight vigils, imploring the rebels to release the hundreds of people they still hold.

The FARC kidnaps people for ransom and political leverage as part of its 44-year war against the state. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein and Nelson Bocanegra; editing by Chris Wilson)

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