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France open to ex-rebels: Uribe

Colombia said on Saturday that France would be willing to receive former guerrilla fighters as part of a possible deal to free scores of rebel hostages, including ailing French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

The proposal is part of a package of offers Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in an effort to prompt rebels to free kidnap victims held for as long as 10 years in secret jungle camps.

Uribe, a conservative who is popular at home for his security crackdown on Latin America's oldest insurgency, this week urged FARC fighters to accept offers of cash rewards and reduced jail terms for abandoning rebel ranks and handing over hostages.

"People have asked me, can they also go overseas? Yes they can go overseas and we will help in that matter. We have spoken to the French government, which has told us it would be willing to take them in over there," Uribe said at a public event.

"All we need is for things to start moving, that rebels take that decision and leave the guerrillas and set the hostages free," Uribe said.

France, Spain and Switzerland are engaged in efforts to broker a deal to swap rebel fighters for hostages.

Pressure for that is building after details emerged indicating former presidential candidate Betancourt is gravely ill after six years in captivity.

Uribe was speaking in San Jose del Guaviare town in the remote province where authorities said this week they had received reports Betancourt had secretly been treated in rural clinics in areas still under rebel influence.

A French newspaper said yesterday that France had parked a Falcon 900 jet in French Guiana to immediately fly out Betancourt if she is freed by FARC.

"We do not have any information about an imminent release but we don't want to leave any stone unturned on our side," a source at the French presidential office told the Journal du Dimanche.

The plane is parked at a military base in Cayenne, the source said.

Betancourt's former husband Fabrice Delloye said recently that he feared she was "either dying or already dead."

"What worries me most is the latest statement by the Colombian government and I wonder if they have information that we do not and are in the process of shielding themselves," Delloye said.

Colombian public Ombudsman Volmar Perez said earlier that reports indicated that "the state of her health is very delicate and her physical and health conditions have been deteriorating."

He said that, according to residents in an area where Betancourt was taken by her captors to be treated, the high-profile hostage was suffering from hepatitis B and leishmania, a skin disease caused by insect bites.
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