BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombian military have located a FARC rebel camp where three hostages whose release has been promised are being held, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Thursday.
The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on February 3 vowed to release three hostages, all former Colombian lawmakers, to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. On Wednesday, the foreign minister of France said FARC had told Chavez a fourth lawmaker might also be released.
The captives have been identified as Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran and Luis Eladio Perez, with former senator Eduardo Gechem being the fourth possible hostage.
The promised releases, which some hostage relatives said could take place before Tuesday, follow FARCs freeing of two captives last month, Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez. They were released to Chavez, who has been mediating in the hostage crisis.
Santos said the military learned from sources that the FARC leader named Arnubal was keeping the hostages at the same eastern Colombia camp from which Rojas and Gonzalez were freed.
Santos said Gechem was not in the rebel camp but was being taken there by rebels from another location and that he was in poor health.
"In this case, we call for a speed-up of the release process due to senator Gechem's health," said the minister, adding that authorities would continue "every support needed so the release can take place as soon as possible."
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Thursday to discuss the hostage issue, including the status of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped while campaigning for the Colombian presidency exactly six years ago.
"Several hostages are in a precarious state of health and need urgent medical attention ... that's why these unilateral releases carry a humanitarian urgency," he told reporters after meeting with the families of some hostage.
Some relatives of the captives, including the Perez's son, Sergio, and Betancourt's husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, called on the Colombian government to refrain from trying to rescue the hostages.
"I hope the government isn't going to be so crazy as to attempt a rescue operation that will put the (hostages') lives at risk," Lecompte told AFP.
The four lawmakers about to be released are among 43 high-profile hostages, including three Americans and Betancourt, whom the FARC want to exchange for 500 rebels held in Colombian prisons.
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