Millions rally for Colombian hostages

In the letters Maria Teresa de Mendieta received from her husband, he spoke of a jungle-borne disease that had so infected...

In the letters Maria Teresa de Mendieta received from her husband, he spoke of a jungle-borne disease that had so infected his legs that he had to drag himself through the mud to go to the bathroom. He wrote of being chained at the neck with other hostages held by Colombian guerrillas, and of losing track of time after a decade trudging through the rain forest.

The letters from Luis Mendieta, a police colonel, is part of the powerful imagery that Latin America’s last major rebel group commanders made public this year. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia calculated that releasing the proof-of-life letters, as well as liberating six hostages in carefully choreographed events, would give it the international relevance it craved after four decades of fruitless armed struggle.

Instead, the strategy backfired with a vengeance. It whipped up the wrath of millions of Colombians, who on Sunday participated in hundreds of anti-rebel protests in this country and in cities as far away as New York, Washington and Paris.

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The worldwide condemnation of the rebels’ tactics has helped solidify President lvaro Uribe’s hard-line position against the group. Even Cuba’s former president, Fidel Castro, who once backed rebel movements in Colombia, recently lashed out at the guerrillas and said their kidnappings served no revolutionary purpose.

The FARC, as the group is known, is now more isolated than ever.

A 44-year-old organisation that just a few years ago was at the gates of Bogota is now in a political and ideological crisis that comes as Colombia’s increasingly competent army fences guerrilla units across the country.

Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician who, until her rescue July 2, was the rebels’ most prominent hostage, said at a rally in Paris that it was time for the FARC to stop fighting. Directing her words at the group’s top commander, Alfonso Cano, she said, “Understand that now is not the hour to shed more blood. It’s time to lay down those weapons and exchange them for roses.”

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