Colombian rebels seize up to 207 workers

Suspected right-wing paramilitary fighters kidnapped as many as 207 workers off palm oil plantations in Colombia in what the army described as the country’s biggest mass kidnapping.

President Andres Pastrana said last night that ‘‘it appears’’ paramilitaries were behind the abductions of mostly young men working on the plantations in the remote eastern state of Casanare. No group had claimed responsibility.

The president told reporters that troops were being deployed into the area, but would tread carefully to avoid endangering the hostages some of whom he said were minors.

In light of the kidnapping, Pastrana pleaded for Colombia’s armed factions to leave civilians out of the 37-year armed conflict.

The workers were seized on Tuesday as they walked home, rode buses and even bicycles after their shifts at several plantations in the Villanueva area, armed forces chief General Fernando Tapias said.

The area is 80 miles east of the capital, Bogota, in steamy lowlands on the other side of a high Andean mountain range.

‘‘This collective kidnapping has characteristics such as we have never seen before in this country,’’ Tapias said in a radio address. He pledged the military will not rest until all the hostages are freed.

Colombia’s top human rights official, Eduardo Cifuentes, said he believed paramilitaries had abducted the workers as part of a forced recruiting drive.

A statement that appeared to be from paramilitaries claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s abductions. The statement, faxed to a local television station, was written on letterhead of a unit of the rightist United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

The statement indicated most of the hostages would be freed. But it said 26 hostages would remain captive until they explain ‘‘certain behaviour.’’

Guerrillas were attempting to infiltrate eastern Casanare State, where the kidnappings took place, and seize control of its lucrative palm oil-producing plantations, the statement said.

The statement was signed by ‘‘Commander HK’’, the nickname of a paramilitary commander authorities say escaped from prison over the weekend.

There was no immediate reaction from the government or confirmation that any of the hostages had been freed.

Several witnesses interviewed on local television said young men from among those kidnapped were separated from a larger group of hostages, and taken away in trucks.

General Ismael Trujillo, the chief criminal investigator in the federal prosecutor’s office, said it was also possible the kidnappers are trying to extort money from plantation owners.

Versions differed as to how many people were being held. Casanare Governor William Perez Espinel said 207 people were reported missing. Prosecutors put the number of hostages at 202, and the military at 190.

Colombia torn by violence with left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitaries has the world’s highest kidnapping rate, with some 3,700 people abducted last year, according to police.

About 200 family members of the captives, frantic with worry, gathered in front of the Villanueva town hall on Wednesday. For most of the day, army officers had said almost all of the captives had been freed overnight and had returned home.

Later, after consulting with his generals, Tapias went on the radio and said 190 people were still being held.

The paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, backed by big landowners and with covert connections to the military, have been attacking leftist rebels and massacring suspected rebel collaborators throughout Colombia’s civil conflict.

The last mass abduction in Colombia occurred on April 16 when leftist rebels kidnapped 34 oil workers in eastern Colombia. They were freed three days later.