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San Jose de Guaviare, Colombia/Caracas: Two women hostages held in the Amazon jungle by Colombian rebels for more than five years have been freed, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday.
"They are free. I told them both, 'Welcome to life'," he told reporters, after spearheading a mission to release the two under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC in Bogota confirmed that the two, Clara Rojas, 44, and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez, 57, had been been handed over to their officials.
"We have the happy news that Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez are in our hands. We are very happy," said ICRC official Barbara Hintermann in Bogota.
It was the most important hostage release in the Colombian conflict since 2001, when the FARC freed some 300 soldiers and police officers it had held captive. Chavez said he hopes it opens the way for a broader peace process in Colombia. "Venezuela will continue opening the way for peace in Colombia. We are ready, and in contact, and we hope the Colombian government understands. I'm sure they will understand," Chavez said. "The world wants peace for Colombia."
Over Christmas, Chavez sent a convoy of aircraft and representatives from several countries to neighbouring Colombia in a highly publicised operation to pick up the captives, but the rebels backed off at the last minute.
The fiasco strained relations between the two countries, but Colombia's conservative government said on Wednesday it would back the new mission. "We are offering all guarantees to ensure the liberation of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez will be carried out successfully," the government's peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, said.
FARC, which began as a peasant army in the 1960s, agreed in December to hand over Colombian politicians Gonzalez and Rojas along with Rojas' young son Emmanuel, who was born in jungle camp. His father is a guerrilla fighter. But that attempt to free them crumbled on December 31 when the FARC said army operations made it too dangerous to move the hostages and failed to reveal where they were held.
It later emerged the child was actually living with a foster family in Bogota.
In the wake of the fiasco, Chavez bickered with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who he accused of blocking the hostage release plan.
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