FARC to release 4 Colombian hostages soon

Colombian militants announced on Saturday that they will release another hostage, Jorge Eduardo Gechem, who has been held for 6 years.

The New Colombia News Agency website quoted Ivan Marquez of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as saying the FARC will soon release four Colombian politicians held captive for years, including the ailing former congressman Jorge Gechem.

Marquez, a senior member of the FARC whose real name is Marin Arango, spoke in an interview posted on Saturday on the left-wing Bolivarian Press Agency website, which has carried interviews with militants and published their statements in the past.

The FARC, holds more than 40 high-value hostages, including French-Colombian former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US defence contractors, which the group is offering to exchange for the release for hundreds of imprisoned rebels.

The three American contractors, captured when their plane went down in rebel-held jungles in February 2003, will remain hostages as long as US and Colombian officials refuse to release captive guerrillas, Marquez was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, said while visiting Venezuela that the FARC had agreed to release an unidentified hostage. Jorge Gechem's wife, Lucy de Gechem, told local radio she was assured by a politician close to the FARC that her husband was to be freed.

On Saturday, after hearing news of his imminent release, Lucy de Gechem said that she had received the news ''with a lot of happiness and tranquility". "We had some uncertainty at the beginning when FARC announced that there were not three but four the kidnapped that they were going to release", she added.

The Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, said that he hoped the militants would, "keep their word to the world and releases the hostages immediately so he (Referring to Jorge Eduardo Gechen) can receive all the medical assistance he needs". Uribe said the Colombian military would monitor the hostages until their release, through their sources of intelligence.

Relatives of other hostages took heart from the announcement of Gechem's release. "We hope that this could be the door to the release of the rest of the hostages who are there". said Deyanira Ortiz de Beltran, the wife of hostage Orlando Beltran.

Beltran's brother, Eduardo, said, "We have to continue working, pushing the international community, looking for the support of different governments because they can not stay there". "It has been a long a process that has lasted long enough but the hope is that all the governments will intervene in this process for an humanitarian agreement", he added. Eduardo Beltran said his hope was to gain the participation of all governments in drafting a humanitarian agreement.