Colombia Claims Rebels
Delay Hostage Handover
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe on Thursday accused FARC rebels
of delaying the release of two soldiers held
hostage for years, saying guerrillas were
using the handover to gain political
leverage before elections.
The International Committee for the Red
Cross, Brazil and the Catholic Church on
Thursday were finalizing details for the
release of Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Josue
Calvo, two kidnapped soldiers the guerrillas
have promised to release since last year.
The release has been delayed as the
government and rebels sparred over
conditions for the handover. The FARC, or
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
still holds 24 military hostages as part of
Latin America's oldest-running insurgency.
"Everything the FARC terrorists have asked
for, the government has ceded so they can
free them," Uribe said. "Now these
terrorists are delaying the liberation,
prolonging the torture just for electoral
ends."
Colombia holds legislative elections next
month and a presidential vote in May. The
constitutional court is about to rule on a
referendum that could allow President Alvaro
Uribe to run for re-election. He has been
evasive on his intentions.
The FARC often steps up attacks before votes
to show its presence. Guerrillas ambushed a
convoy carrying a candidate for governor of
Guaviare State on Sunday, killing six people
and injuring the politician before he
escaped.
Uribe's U.S.-backed security drive has
battered the FARC to its weakest in decades,
forcing the group to turn to ambushes and
improvised landmines to harass troops in
rural areas, where rebels smuggle cocaine to
finance their war.
The FARC has unilaterally released hostages
before and has insisted the government swap
kidnapped soldiers and police for jailed
rebel fighters. But moves toward peace talks
to end the four-decade-old insurgency remain
very unlikely.
Uribe, whose own father was killed by the
FARC in a botched kidnapping two decades
ago, maintains his hardline stance that the
rebels must lay down their arms and halt
hostilities before his government sits down
to any peace negotiations. |
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