Ex-Colombian hostage tells of chains, battle fears
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Many of the hostages held by Colombian rebels are kept chained in jungle camps surrounded by barbed wire and are terrified by encroaching army artillery and machine gun fire, a freed captive said on Friday.
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Colombian President Alvaro Uribe freed a jailed guerrilla leader on Monday to try to broker peace talks and negotiate the release of rebel-held hostages, including a French-Colombian politician and three Americans.
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Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Friday welcomed Group of Eight nations' support for his initiative to free hostages held by left-wing rebels, but a guerrilla leader he released from prison to try to negotiate a deal warned that any agreement remained elusive.
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BARRANQUILLA, Colombia -- Pedro Luis Daza, a 40-year-old telecommunications technician, dressed up as guerrilla leader Simon Trinidad, who was recently extradited to the United States. One of his two brothers masqueraded as a US Army adviser in Colombia, complete with a realistic-looking rifle. The other posed as a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebel who was recently captured in Venezuela.
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A Peruvian journalist described on Friday the horror he felt being kidnapped by President Alberto Fujimori's security squad in 1992, hours after the former leader shut down Congress during a war against leftists.
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Colombian leftist rebels released a video that showed seven kidnapped police officers and soldiers &#151; some of whom have spent nearly a decade in captivity &#151; pleading for talks between the government and the rebels to set them free.
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BOGOTA, Colombia  - The Colombian government on  Wednesday offered to free 50 jailed guerrillas if Marxist  rebels release the same number of political and military  hostages, some held captive for up to seven years.
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VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia  - A delicate mission to free three hostages held by Colombian guerrillas was close to collapse on Monday as the government and rebel leaders accused each other of trying to kill the deal.
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Police and army operations in two Colombian cities have led to one of the largest rebel surrenders since President Alvaro Uribe began his U.S.-backed security crackdown in 2002, authorities said on Wednesday.
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Five years after she was kidnapped by guerrillas, former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt has become an international symbol of the suffering of hostages still held in rebel camps.
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A freed hostage tells of bandits, betrayal, and men in black hoods
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Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez prepared to send helicopters into Colombia on Friday to pick up three hostages held for years by Marxist rebels, but they were unlikely to be freed until the weekend.
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Believing that Colombia's violence had ebbed, Giovanni Colmenares and his family moved from the United States back to Colombia last year, opened a bar in Bogota and were looking to buy an apartment. But then one day assailants hustled him into a car and put a gun to his head.
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Released Colombian hostage Clara Rojas says she is eager to be reunited with her son who was born in captivity.
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A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages, including a 3-year old boy, from leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart Monday as the guerrillas accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
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BOGOTA, Colombia  - Colombia said on Friday asenior Marxist guerrilla leader may avoid extradition to theUnited States if his rebel group frees 63 hostages, includingthree Americans and one German.
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A Colombian woman freed by rebels after nearly six years in captivity said on Friday she tried to escape with her friend, French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, and their captors used jungle snakes to punish them.