Colombian hostages savor freedom after six years in rebel hands

CARACAS - Two high-profile women hostages held in the Amazon jungle by Colombian rebels for some six years have been freed, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.

"You are completely free now," Chavez said he had told the two women Clara Rojas and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez. "I told both of them: Welcome to Life."

Just seconds earlier he spoke with Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin, who was clearly moved, and told Chavez "at this time we are welcoming Clara and Consuelo who are in the hands of a FARC unit."

"I greeted the FARC unit chief, and welcomed Clara and Consuelo, who were very emotional," Chavez added.

The ICRC in Bogota confirmed Rojas, 44, the mother of a young son born during her captivity who is now said to be in foster care in Bogota, and 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.

Two Venezuelan helicopters earlier took off from the small city of San Jose del Guaviare in southeastern Colombia for a secret rendezvous point in the jungle, with a narrow one-hour deadline to collect the hostages.

Bogota had ordered all other flights over the region suspended, and halted military operations in the area, officials said.

An earlier handover attempt failed in late December amid dramatic revelations that rebels no longer had in their custody Rojas's three-year-old son, who was supposed to be released with the two women.

But in a dramatic twist, the leftist Chavez, who has acted as a mediator in this case, said Wednesday he had finally received from Colombian rebels the coordinates of the secret spot where Rojas and Gonzalez would be freed.

The handover took place in an area of southern Colombia rife with fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and illegal coca plantations.

The FARC is one of the world's longest running insurgencies, and the rebels are believed to hold around 750 hostages.

The two were part of a group of more than 40 hostages -- including Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three US nationals -- that the FARC wants to exchange for 500 rebels jailed by the Colombian government.

Rojas was managing Betancourt's presidential campaign when rebels captured the two in February 2002. Gonzalez was captured in 2001.

Colombia was gripped in 2006 by reports that Rojas had given birth to a baby boy, Emmanuel, in a jungle camp, after an allegedly consensual relation with a guerrilla fighter.

The birth was first reported by a Colombian journalist, who cited the FARC's top commander, and later confirmed by an escaped hostage who said he had seen the boy.

In December, FARC offered to release Gonzalez, Rojas and her son to Chavez, who had been trying to mediate the hostage swap between Bogota and the rebels but was formally dropped from the role by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in November.

With Bogota's grudging consent, Chavez choreographed an elaborate handover and on December 28, aircraft, journalists and international observers from seven countries including Switzerland and France flocked to Colombia.

But that handover stalled when the FARC failed to inform Chavez of the handover location, then collapsed on December 31 with Uribe's bombshell revelation that the boy was actually at a state-run orphanage in Bogota.

A suspected FARC go-between sought protection from Colombian police in late December, saying the FARC was threatening to kill him if he did not return a boy they had given him in 2005, who was subsequently seized by social services on suspicion of child abuse.

The tip enabled Colombian authorities to track down the boy, and DNA tests conducted in Colombia and Spain using samples from Rojas's mother and brother have confirmed the youngster is indeed her son.