BOGOTA — Colombia’s badly battered FARC rebels delivered three police officers and a soldier to the International Red Cross on Sunday in a mission marred by accusations of military interference.
A Brazilian military helicopter, emblazoned with the Red Cross insignia, retrieved the four hostages from a spot in the southeastern jungles.
A reporter accompanying the mission said it was hounded by military overflights.
“The operation was basically on the verge of being aborted,” Jorge Enrique Botero told the Venezuelan television network Telesur by satellite phone just before the handover. He said he had recordings to prove it.
Colombia’s peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, called the allegations “baseless.” He said the government honored an agreement with the Red Cross for no military flights beneath 20,000 feet during the liberation.
The freed hostages were en route Sunday afternoon to the provincial capital of Villavicencio in Colombia’s eastern lowlands, where relatives spent an anxious day awaiting them, said Red Cross spokesman Yves Heller.
Captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2007, they are among six hostages the FARC pledged to free this week. The other two, the only Colombian politicians believed still in rebel hands, have been held far longer.
Analysts consider this week’s unconditional releases — the guerrillas’ first in nearly a year — a goodwill gesture. However, chances for a peace dialogue with Colombia’s government remain far off. The alleged military interference Sunday was only apt to complicate matters.
Also speaking with Telesur from the handover site, a guerrilla commander who identified himself as Jairo Martinez accused Colombia’s military of killing a rebel in his unit in combat on Sunday morning.
The government peace commissioner, Restrepo, did not directly deny the allegation, but said, “We are accustomed to the lies of the FARC.”
The Western Hemisphere’s last rebel army announced this week’s releases on Dec. 21 in response to a plea from Colombian intellectuals.
Colombia’s U.S.-backed military has seriously weakened the rebels in the past two years, killing top commanders, compelling hundreds of desertions with hefty rewards and forcing the rebels into virtual radio silence with sophisticated surveillance.
FARC commander Alfonso Cano, meanwhile, has refused to renounce kidnapping, a key rebel political and fundraising tool. The guerrillas’ main revenue source is the cocaine trade.
It is not known how many hostages are held by the FARC, which has sought the overthrow of successive Colombian governments for 45 years, though the government says they currently include just one foreigner, a Swede identified as Roland Larsson kidnapped in May 2007.
At least 22 Colombian soldiers and police continue to be held by the FARC as bargaining chips. They include a police general seized more than a decade ago and Cpl. Pablo Moncayo, 28, who was captured in December 1997 during a raid on a remote mountain outpost.
Today, the rebels are to hand over former provincial Gov. Alan Jara, 51, who was kidnapped in July 2001. Former provincial lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez is to be released on Wednesday.
