Chávez Wins Release of Hostages Held By Colombian Rebels

Colombian guerrillas yesterday released four hostages who had been held in the jungle for more than six years, delivering a diplomatic coup to Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez who brokered the deal. Two Venezuelan helicopters scooped up the three men and a woman from a jungle clearing in eastern Colombia and were last night ferrying them to an emotional reunion with relatives waiting in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

The releases raised hopes that Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), would free more of the estimated 700 hostages who are languishing in primitive conditions.

Gloria Polanco, 49, Luis Eladio Pérez, 57, Orlando Beltran, 48, and Jorge Gechem, 56, were abducted separately in 2001 and 2002. As former members of Colombia's senate and congress they were high-profile hostages. They appear to have been chosen for release because they were ill.

"Such a kidnapping surely tears out one's insides," Daniel Polanco, the youngest of Gloria Polanco's three sons, told Colombia's Caracol radio. He was 11 years old when his mother was kidnapped. His father was later murdered, allegedly by the rebels.

Polanco said they had bought their mother flowers, balloons, two or three changes of clothes and cosmetics "so she can be pretty the first days".

The hardline attitude of President Alvaro Uribe's conservative government to the rebels has blocked efforts to free hostages and Chávez has used his influence with Farc to break the deadlock. After winning the release of two female hostages last month, he urged the international community to recognize Farc as a legitimate army, not a terrorist organization.