Leftist Colombian Rebels free 70 Troops After Army Pullback

Chronicle News Services
Cartagena de Chaira, Colombia

Leftist guerrillas ended the most humiliating chapter in the Colombian
Army's history yesterday with the release of 70 soldiers and marines they
have held prisoner for as long as nine months.

Mothers and sons wept as they were reunited in the central square under the
gaze of thousands of onlookers and about 200 heavily armed guerrillas of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the hemisphere's oldest
and largest rebel movement.

At a handover ceremony attended by several European ambassadors and Costa
Rican and Guatemalan delegates, TARC regional commander 'Joaquin Gomez read
a communique that set a series of preconditions for the start of peace
talks to end the nation's 30 year civil war.

The communique called for an end to rightist paramilitary organizations,
known as Convivir, and for the army to permanently withdraw from the 5,000
squaremile southern jungle zonethe size of Connecticutthat it had
temporarily evacuated to allow the prisoner release.

But army commander General Ilanuel Jose Bonett pledged to re enter the zone
in Caqueta province this week and to hunt down the rebels relentlessly.

Tbe FARC's Aug. 30, 1 B, attack on the Las Delicias military base on
neighboring Putumayo province, in which 60 soldiers were captured and 30
others were killed, was one of tbe army's most serious defeats ever.

Political analysts said the FARC scored a huge triumph by forcing tbe army
to pull out of the jungle zone for 32 days to make way for the troop
release. It was he first time the military had ceded such a large area to
the rebels.

This is a spectacular public and even diplomatic victory for the FARC,
who will only increase their armed belligerence," Enrique Sant,
a prominent, progovernment columnist, wrote in the E:l Tiempo newspaper
yesterday.

The freed soldiers, cleanshaven and in apparent good health said the
rebels treated them well and lent them radios and some times permitted them
to watch television. The worst problem, the soldiers had, were the insect
bites from living in the jungle.

One soldier said: "It went well because I came out alive."

The FARC's 12,000 guerrillas have gained a steady income by collecting
commissions on coca leaf harvest from cocaine traffickers and have
developed a strong popular base among coca growers. I for example, in
Cartagena de Chaira, a steamy Jungle community reachable only by river,
coca is the only viable commercial crop. Everything else spoils in the heat
before it gets to market.

Support for the guerrillas is so strong in the region that the mother of
one freed soldier told reporters, "At least the guerrillas respect people
more than the military."

The rightist military is a powerful, behindthescenes player in government
policy and has been widely condemned by human rights groups for its
widespread abuses.

Last year, many residents took part in violent clashes with government
troops to oppose the U.S. backed eradication of coca crops, and they
complain that the government has reneged on its agreements to improve
social conditions and to buy alternative crops. Instead, the government has
severely limited access to cement and gasoline, which are used in cocaine
production.