Leftist rebels on Saturday freed two hostages held for about five months, after the turnover was scuttled a week ago by a disagreement over government troops in the area, the International Red Cross announced.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, released a police officer and cadet in the La Dorada jungle region of Putumayo province, about 540km southwest of the capital Bogota, near the Ecuadorean border.
"After the failed operation of last week, delegates of the Red Cross went to the Putumayo River to receive the police officers Eder Luis Almanza Patron and Carlos Alberto Legarda Rosero," the Red Cross said in a statement.
The hostages were released in good health.
The initial announcement that the men would be released came as a surprise.
FARC has largely rejected peace entreaties, declaring as recently as January that it would never negotiate with the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
"The government thanks the discreet work of the Red Cross," he told Radio RCN on Saturday.
He urged FARC to release all of its captives.
Colombia's largest and oldest rebel forces, FARC still hold about 60 politically prominent Colombians and three US defense contractors.
Kidnappings
The group uses kidnappings as a source of income and to pressure the government in its struggle to establish a Marxist-style state.
Almanza and Legarda were taken hostage by FARC during an attack on a police station in the town of San Miguel in Putumayo province.
Colombia's civil war has raged for more than four decades, pitting the rebels against the government and right-wing paramilitary forces that have in the past operated with the tacit support of the armed forces.
Kidnappings have fallen by more than 70 percent since Uribe took office in 2002 and increased the number of soldiers and police. Colombia, however, remains a world leader in abduction, with 800 kidnappings reported last year.
To mediate the hostage release, FARC chose dark-horse presidential aspirant Alvaro Leyva, a former government minister with long-standing relations with FARC who has promised to jump-start peace talks with the rebel group.
But Leyva withdrew from direct participation after Colombia's president criticized the political connotations of the arrangement. Uribe is expected to ride the popularity of his hard-line policies to a second term in the May 28 elections.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS