Colombian rebels to free captive soldier after 12 years; helicopter departs on pickup mission

Colombian rebels to free hostage after 12 years

FLORENCIA, Colombia — A Brazilian military helicopter departed on a humanitarian mission Tuesday to pick up a Colombian soldier expected to be freed by leftist rebels after more than 12 years in captivity.

Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo is one of the longest-held hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He was 19 when taken captive during a raid on a mountaintop communications post on Dec. 21, 1997.

His father, high school teacher Gustavo Moncayo, gained fame for walking halfway across Colombia in 2007 to press for his release wearing a chain around his neck and hands.

“My heart is going a thousand an hour,” Gustavo Moncayo said on an airport tarmac in the city of Florencia where he, his wife and four daughters waved to the departing helicopter. The family has been anxiously waiting for Moncayo’s release since the FARC announced plans to set him free in April 2009.

The Super Cougar helicopter loaned by Brazil carried a team led by Sen. Piedad Cordoba and including International Red Cross officials and a priest, bound for an undisclosed hand-over point in southern Colombia.

Cordoba gave a play-by-play on Twitter as the flight was delayed more than two hours due to rain, then announced: “We’re taking off friends, thanks for your support. moncayo will soon return to freedom.”

The rebels freed another soldier, 23-year-old Pvt. Josue Calvo, on Sunday, in their first release of a captive in more than a year.

According to Cordoba, an opposition senator who has been a go-between in contacting the FARC, the guerrillas say that after Moncayo is freed they will end their unilateral releases and press the government to negotiate a swap of jailed rebels for remaining captives.

The FARC still holds at least 20 police and soldiers including Libio Jose Martinez, a 33-year-old sergeant who was captured in the same assault as Moncayo.

President Alvaro Uribe has called the FARC’s unilateral releases publicity stunts and has opposed a prisoner swap unless any guerrillas who are freed agree to abandon the rebels.

Uribe, who leaves office in August after two consecutive four-year terms, is hugely popular in Colombia for aggressively fighting the FARC and dealing it crushing blows, including the 2008 rescue of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. military contractors and eleven other captives.

The leftist FARC, the Western Hemisphere’s last remaining major rebel army, has fought for nearly a half-century to topple a succession of governments.