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Colombian rebels free hostage lawmaker: Red Cross
Thu Feb 5, 2009 1:53pm EST
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By Helen Popper
CALI, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC rebels on Thursday freed a lawmaker held hostage for nearly seven years in jungle camps in the last of three such handovers this week by Latin America's oldest insurgency, the Red Cross said.
Sigifredo Lopez, who was kidnapped from a state assembly building in 2002, was the last politician in FARC hands. The recent releases have raised speculation that weakened rebels want to gain political ground after a year of military defeats.
Lopez's return could reveal more details about 11 other provincial lawmakers who were captured with him but killed in 2007 in what the government says was accidental cross-fire between two guerrilla units.
Rebels handed Lopez over to a delegation that flew by helicopter into Colombia's remote jungles to pick him up. The mission included a left-wing senator who brokered the deal after maintaining written contact with guerrilla commanders.
"In a rural zone in Cauca department, the FARC-EP handed over the former Valle deputy Sigifredo Lopez to Senator Piedad Cordoba and delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross," the aid agency said in a statement.
Rebels freed four members of the armed forces and a former governor this week. Analysts say the FARC, which was established in the 1960s as a communist-inspired peasant army, is seeking more maneuvering room with the handovers. But talks to end the insurgency appear distant.
Lopez, 45 and a father of two boys, was snatched during a daring raid by guerrillas posing as soldiers searching for a bomb at the assembly in Cali city center. Rebels bundled the kidnap victims onto a bus and spirited them into the mountains.
A rebel video inside the bus showed the stunned lawmakers when they were told they were in the hands of the FARC.
Lopez was last seen, gray-haired but looking healthy, in a 2008 tape, greeting his family and asking the government to negotiate a deal to free hostages.
WEAKENED REBELS
Colombians were outraged when the FARC announced the deaths of 11 lawmakers captured with Lopez. The guerrilla group initially said the men had been killed when an unknown armed group attacked their camp, but later handed over their bodies.
The FARC once controlled large parts of Colombia, but has been battered by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-financed security campaign. Three top commanders died last year and rebel ranks have been sapped by growing desertions.
The rebels have little support and are branded a drug-smuggling terrorist group by the United States and Europe.
But the FARC -- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- remains a force in some rural areas where state presence is weak and rebels were blamed for two recent urban bombings that killed four people.
The FARC says it wants to swap around 20 captive police and soldiers in a deal for jailed fighters. But the government and guerrillas are deadlocked over terms for the exchange. Continued...
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