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Colombian Guerrillas Free 242 War Prisoners
Colombia's most powerful guerrilla army freed 242 war prisoners in this remote rebel-held town Thursday, calling the mass release of government soldiers and police a gesture of peace.
After making speeches in a heavy rain, armed and olive-clad commanders of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia handed over the men to Red Cross.
The police and soldiers ¡ª some of whom were free for the first time in nearly four years ¡ª were then marched from a large open corral onto trucks and driven toward a nearby airstrip.
From the airstrip, planes will take them to a military base west of the capital, Bogota, where family members were waiting for them.
The release was designed to boost peace talks to end the South American country's 37-year guerrilla war. It follows a government-rebel prisoner swap earlier this month that was the most tangible result of more than two years of negotiations between President Andres Pastrana and the 16,000-strong rebel army known as the FARC.
At a makeshift camp outside La Macarena late Wednesday, prisoners lit a huge bonfire and tossed clothing, notebooks and other bad memories of captivity on it to celebrate their impending freedom.
La Macarena, with its 3,000 residents, is one of five townships comprising a Switzerland-sized rebel enclave Pastrana ceded to the FARC in November 1998 as a concession to bring them to the peace table.
Nearly 20,000 peasants have arrived here to witness the event, most of them bused in for the occasion by the rebels.
At least 3,000 people are killed each year in the conflict, and Colombia also has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world.
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