Guerillas Look Towards Peace
Colombia's most powerful guerrilla army freed 242 war prisoners in the remote rebel-held town of La Macarena Thursday, calling the mass release of government soldiers and police a gesture of peace.
In a ceremony presided over by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's (FARC) commander Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, the rebels handed the prisoners over to the government's top peace envoy, Camilo Gomez, in a demilitarized area in southern Colombia that was ceded to the guerrillas more than two years ago to start the talks.
The police and soldiers, some of whom were free for the first time in nearly four years and have suffered from tropical diseases including malaria, were then marched from a large open corral onto trucks and driven toward a nearby airstrip.
From the airstrip, planes will take them to a military base west of the capital, Bogota, where family members were waiting for them.
The handover outside La Macarena, complete with a parade of thousands of armed rebels in military fatigues and live Vallenato music, was designed to give the impression of one army handing over prisoners to another opposing military force. A group of foreign ambassadors were also attending.
The release was designed to boost peace talks to end the South American country's 37-year guerrilla war. It follows a government-rebel prisoner swap earlier this month that was the most tangible result of more than two years of negotiations between President Andres Pastrana and the 16,000-strong rebel army known as the FARC.
At a makeshift camp outside La Macarena late Wednesday, prisoners lit a huge bonfire and tossed clothing, notebooks and other bad memories of captivity on it to celebrate their impending freedom.
"I want to be new again, I don't want to take with me anything from here," said Ivan Medina, a 24-year-old policeman who was captured in August 1998 when the FARC overran an anti-narcotics base in Colombia's southern plains.
La Macarena, with its 3,000 residents, is one of five townships comprising a Switzerland-sized rebel enclave Pastrana ceded to the FARC in November 1998 as a concession to bring them to the peace table.
Nearly 20,000 peasants have arrived here to witness the event, most of them bused in for the occasion by the rebels.
"It's a good thing (the prisoners) are going free and hopefully there will be peace because we peasants are the ones who suffer the most from the war," said Antonio Mejia, 73, who made a 10-hour bus trip to La Macarena from his village.
At least 3,000 people are killed each year in the conflict, and Colombia also has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world.
Critics charge that the FARC is only freeing the prisoners to counter growing public sentiment against the peace process and the rebel's southern enclave.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the FARC's top military commander disagreed. "This is an action that demonstrates our will to make peace," said the burly commnder, Jorge Briceno.
The release on Thursday comes the same day the South American Football Confederation (CSF) said it had moved Copa America, South America's top international soccer tournament, from Colombia after FARC rebels kidnapped on Monday a senior soccer official.
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