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Colombia Rebels Free 45 Hostages for Christmas
Colombia's second biggest leftist rebel group freed 42 policemen and soldiers on Saturday and told them to ``be happy,'' in a gesture of Christmas goodwill that officials said brought full peace talks closer.
The men, looking well, were rounded up in a jungle hamlet northeast of Bogota where Felipe Torres, a National Liberation Army (ELN) leader on temporary release from jail, checked names off a list and displayed a ``certificate of handover.''
``We wish you all a good journey home, a happy reunion with your families and that you be happy,'' Torres told the men, to applause, before they were packed into helicopters and flown to the town of Bucaramanga for medical checks and to meet relatives they had not seen for more than two years.
The rebels' show of seasonal goodwill -- with no strings attached -- has been widely welcomed in this increasingly war-weary nation and officials said it should spur moves to create a demilitarized enclave in the north of the country where the rebels and government could hold full peace talks.
Thirty of the hostages were policemen -- one with the police dog he was captured with -- who arrived in Bucaramanga wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan ``peace.'' Many wiped away tears as they arrived to hugs and kisses.
``Peace is built with words and especially with deeds that we have started to see today,'' Colombia's peace commissioner, Camilo Gomez, told reporters after the handover.
``Colombians are waiting for acts of peace. Today, an act of peace has been realized ... peace is undoubtedly possible.''
The ELN had promised to free 45 policemen and soldiers it had captured in combat. Gomez said the other three had not been freed for logistical reasons, but would be in coming days.
Meanwhile, the men, some playing with children, ate a Christmas meal with music and entertainment supplied by officers wearing Santa suits in the police's trademark green.
Peace Talks Approaching
The ELN's first release of military and police came after two weeks of informal talks with the government in Cuba, the rebels' ideological homeland, designed to pave the way to peace talks akin to those of Colombia's main rebel group, the FARC.
``In Cuba, there were important advances,'' Gomez said. ''Undoubtedly, we are starting to make progress.''
El Espectador newspaper on Saturday quoted the top peace official in the strife-hit northwestern region of Antioquia, where the ELN is also active, as saying that a decision on a zone for the talks to be held could be made by Dec. 31.
Antonio Garcia, No. 2 in the ELN command, told Radio Caracol three more hostages would be freed at a later date.
The ELN, whose mass kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines are two of its main weapons in its war on the state, wants the government to cede it control of land in the north -- similar to the swath of southern jungle in the hands of the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is off-limits to state security forces until Jan. 31.
Police chief Luis Ernesto Gilibert said it was clear that ''kidnapping cannot continue in Colombia.''
The FARC, which controls about 40 percent of this Andean nation, holds about 450 soldiers and police officers hostage, which it proposed swapping for some 350 jailed rebels.
The government refused. But this month, seeking to jump-start stalled peace talks, it said it was nearing a deal that could open the way to Colombia's first prisoner exchange.
The FARC last month snapped off two years of slow-moving peace talks, demanding a state crackdown on the far-right paramilitary death squads which it says target rebels.
Colombia has been riven by nearly four decades of violence involving the FARC, the ELN and paramilitaries. The conflict has claimed at least 35,000 lives in the past 10 years. None of the combatants has declared a formal Christmas truce. (Agencies)
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