Two hostages held for five years freed by FARC

TWO high-profile woman hostages held in the Amazon jungle by Colombian rebels for more than five years were freed yesterday.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tod reporters: “They are free. I told them both, ‘Welcome to life’.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Bogota confirmed that Clara Rojas, 44, and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez, 57, had been handed over.

“We have the happy news that Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez are in our hands. We are very happy,” said Red Cross official Barbara Hintermann in Bogota.

Two Venezuelan helicopters had taken off from the small city of San Jose del Guaviare in south-eastern Colombia for a secret rendezvous point in the jungle, with a one-hour deadline to collect the hostages.

Bogota suspended all other flights over the region, and halted military operations in the area.

An earlier handover attempt failed in late December amid dramatic revelations that rebels no longer had in their custody one of hostages slated for release — a three-year-old boy born in captivity.

Mr Chavez, who acted as a mediator in this case, said yesterday he finally received from Colombian rebels the coordinates of a secret spot where the boy’s mother, Ms Rojas, and Ms Gonzalez were to be freed.

The handover took place in an area of southern Colombia rife with fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and illegal coca plantations.

Confirming that Bogota had approved Mr Chavez’s new handover plan, Colombian peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said the two governments, which have had tense relations, were in close coordination this time around.

“There is a good spirit of collaboration between the two countries and we are now making progress on operational steps that will permit, with the greatest speed, the liberation” of the women, Mr Restrepo said.

The two were part of a group of more than 40 hostages — including Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three US nationals — that FARC wants to exchange for 500 rebels held by the Colombian government.

Ms Rojas was managing Ms Betancourt’s presidential campaign when rebels captured the two in February 2002. Ms Gonzalez was captured in 2001.

Colombia was gripped in 2006 by reports that Ms Rojas had given birth to a baby boy, Emmanuel, in a jungle camp, after an allegedly consensual relation with a guerrilla fighter.

The birth was first reported by a journalist, who cited FARC’s top commander, and later confirmed by an escaped hostage who said he had seen the boy, now in a Bogota foster home.