Colombian rebels to hand Chavez 3 hostages

By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian Marxist guerrillas have said they will turn over three of their hostages to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez after Bogota ended the leftist leader's efforts to secure a deal to free rebel captives.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, said it had ordered Colombians Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel and Consuelo Gonzalez handed over to Chavez or a contact assigned by him, said Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, which obtained the rebel statement.

The news was welcomed by hostage families but puts pressure on President Alvaro Uribe after he abruptly halted Chavez's mediation with Latin America's oldest insurgency over hostages including a French-Colombian politician and three Americans.

Chavez, a White House foe who presents his socialist vision as a counterweight to U.S. policies, confirmed the FARC statement. But said he had yet to decide how to proceed and attacked Uribe for ending his negotiation efforts on November 22.

"A few minutes ago, I received the FARC communique, I was ready for some hostage release ... it seems like a great Christmas present," Chavez said during a visit to Uruguay.

"Let's hope Uribe doesn't know anything, because Uribe is capable of trying to block this release," he said.

Clara Rojas was campaigning with dual French-Colombian citizen and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt when they were captured in 2002 in southern Colombia.

Rojas gave birth to her son in captivity and the case of the boy raised in jungle hideouts shocked Colombians. Consuelo Gonzalez is a former lawmaker who was kidnapped in 2001.

"This is the moment I have waited for ... this closes the circle," Rojas's mother Clara Gonzalez told local radio.

NO TO SAFE HAVEN ZONE

Begun as a peasant army fighting for socialism in the 1960s, the FARC today is holding scores of police, soldiers and politicians for ransom and political leverage, some of whom have been detained for nearly a decade in secret jungle camps.

The FARC, which has been weakened by Uribe's U.S.-backed security campaign, is branded a terrorist group by the United States and Europe.

Chavez and leftist Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba had been invited by Uribe earlier this year to try to secure a hostage deal until Colombia ended the effort last month over concerns the left-wing president had broken protocol and favored the

FARC.

The announcement triggered a diplomatic spat between the two countries and Chavez called back his ambassador from Caracas in protest. He has threatened trade ties and says he wants nothing to do with the Uribe government.

Uribe, popular for his U.S.-backed campaign to drive the FARC back into the jungles, recently offered a 30-day safe haven under international observation for talks with the FARC to exchange 47 high-profile captives for jailed rebels.

But the FARC insisted in their communique that he remove troops for a demilitarized zone about the size of New York City to facilitate talks for 45 days. Uribe, whose father was killed in a botched FARC kidnap, has rejected the plan.

Uribe's government has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight FARC and combat drug smuggling that helps fuel the 4-decade-old conflict.

Violence has ebbed, but foreign pressure has mounted for an accord since the government captured rebel videos of some hostages in November. One showed Betancourt looking gaunt and despondent in a secret jungle camp.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is now urging other Latin American governments to back his efforts to secure an agreement between Uribe and the guerrillas on swapping a group of key hostages for hundreds of rebels held in government prisons.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana, Patricia Avila in Montevideo, writing by Patrick Markey, editing by Doina Chiacu)