Colombia offers army withdrawal for hostage talks
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-14 11:13

Colombia is prepared to withdraw troops from around a small mountain town if necessary to negotiate with rebels for the freedom of dozens of hostages held for as long as seven years, the government said on Tuesday.

President Alvaro Uribe said he accepted the proposal by France, Spain and Switzerland to break a deadlock with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia over starting talks on freeing jailed rebels in return for the 63 hostages, who include a former presidential candidate and three Americans.

"I confess this is a concession on the part of my government," Uribe told a news conference.

"We want to be understanding of the anguish, the pain and suffering of so many Colombian families whose relatives have been kidnapped."

There was no immediate word on whether the rebel army, known by its Spanish initials FARC, had also accepted the proposal. But the plan appeared close to meeting the guerrillas' earlier demands for talks to begin.

Uribe gave no date for the troop withdrawal from 70 square miles (180 square km) around the town of El Retiro in the southern province of Valle del Cauca.

The president, popular for his hard line against the FARC, made the concession as he prepares to seek a second four-year term in office in next May's election.

The hostages include Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian-French national captured by the FARC while campaigning for the presidency in 2002. The rebels also seized three civilian U.S. Defense Department contractors when their small plane crashed on a mission seeking out crops used to make cocaine in 2003.

HELD FOR SEVEN YEARS

The other hostages are politicians, soldiers and police officers, some held up to seven years in secret jungle camps.

The FARC, a 17,000-strong peasant army that has been fighting for socialist revolution for 41 years and largely funds itself from the cocaine trade, wants thousands of jailed guerrillas freed in return for the hostages.

Both sides say they want a deal, but the chances of negotiations taking place seemed remote for years as government and rebels rejected each other's conditions for talking.

By promising to withdraw troops from around El Retiro, Uribe has come close to meeting a key demand of the rebels, although the FARC had wanted the army to pull back from a much larger area to guarantee the safety of its negotiators.

A deal to release the hostages could provide an electoral boost for the already very popular Uribe, who has overseen a big drop in violence and crime since taking office in 2002.

Uribe has increased military spending and ordered the army to be more aggressive against the FARC, but has also started peace talks with far-right paramilitaries and is launching preliminary negotiations with the country's second-largest Marxist rebel army.

Thousands of people are killed in Colombia's conflict every year. Although opinion polls indicate it has little popular support, the FARC says it is fighting for economic justice in a country with big differences between rich and poor.

Apart from tapping money from Colombia's huge cocaine trade, the FARC also kidnaps hundreds of people a year for ransom. These hostages are not included in their talks with the government.