FARC to Release Three Colombian Hostages in Effort to Initiate Peace Talks

[Judi Lynn]

FARC to Release Three Colombian Hostages in Effort to Initiate Peace Talks
By Andrea Jaramillo and Helen Murphy - Feb 13, 2011 8:38 AM CT

Colombia’s biggest rebel group said it will today free the final two of five hostages it promised in December to release from jungle hideouts, plus an additional hostage announced yesterday.

A Brazilian military helicopter bearing the International Red Cross emblem took off from Ibague airport in central Tolima province to three secret locations where members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, will hand over to an international humanitarian mission Mayor Guillermo Solorzano, held since 2007, soldier Salin Sanmiguel, seized in 2008, and policeman Carlos Ocampo, kidnapped in Dec. 2010, whose release was announced yesterday. Two councilmen and a navy marine were freed earlier this week.

The liberations come as the FARC, whose numbers have been whittled by eight years of military attacks, called on the government to seek dialogue. President Juan Manuel Santos earlier this week criticized the FARC’s “double standards” after the rebel group kidnapped two employees of Smurfit Kappa Group Plc’s Colombia unit on Feb. 8, one day prior to the release of councilman Marcos Baquero.

“The FARC is sending a clear message it wants to start moving toward peace talks with the government,” said Juan Carlos Palou, an analyst at Bogota-based think-tank Fundacion Ideas Para la Paz. “These releases are viewed not as an act of generosity but as something the FARC has to do in order for the possibility of a dialogue to even exist.”

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-13/farc-to-release-three-colombian-hostages-in-effort-to-initiate-peace-talks.html