Colombia rescues 2 of FARC’s longest-held hostages

Colombian soldiers free long-held rebel hostages

BOGOTA, Colombia — Soldiers on Sunday freed two high-ranking police officers and an army sergeant who were among Colombia’s longest-held rebel captives in a raid in southern jungles.

President Alvaro Uribe announced the rescue of police Gen. Luis Mendieta and Col. Enrique Murillo, both captured by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a November 1998 siege of the remote eastern provincial capital of Mitu.

Also freed was soldier Arbey Delgado, who was held since an August 1998 rebel attack on an anti-drug outpost in the southern jungle town of Miraflores, according a Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

Uribe did not provide details of the rescue other than to say, “The combat is continuing.” Sunday was Mendieta’s 53rd birthday.

Gen. Javier Florez said the rescue occurred in the southeastern province of Guaviare and that an undisclosed number of rebels were killed during more than three hours of combat. “The freed hostages are alive and well. They are not wounded,” he said.

Uribe spoke by phone with Mendieta’s wife, Maria Teresa Paredes, and with Murillo’s mother, Robertina Sanchez.

“I am the happiest woman in the world,” a sobbing Paredes told Caracol radio. “God heard our prayers.”

Murillo’s brother Emiliano said his family was watching a World Cup football match when a TV news bulletin announced the rescue.

“Can you imagine how we felt?” a sobbing Emiliano Murillo said. “There is a lot of joy in the family, but it’s not complete because more prisoners are out there.”

Military rescues of hostages are a tricky matter in Colombia.

Many families of the captives publicly discourage the government from mounting such operations. The fear that the guerrillas, as they have done in the past, will execute their loved ones at the first sign of attack.

In July 2008, soldiers posing as members of a humanitarian mission freed former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. contractors and 11 police and military officials held by the FARC.

But that was the last military rescue until Sunday’s.

The FARC continues to hold about 20 police and soldiers.

It freed two officers in March in what it said would be the last unilateral hostage release until the government agrees to a swap for imprisoned rebels.

The government of Uribe, who leaves office on Aug. 7, has rejected the idea of a prisoner swap and demands the rebels free all their captives and renounce kidnapping.