Ex-hostage hugs children after blow to Colombia rebels

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Ingrid Betancourt, the symbol of rebel hostages in Colombia, hugged and wept with her children for the first time in six years on Thursday after a military rescue that dealt a severe blow to already weakened guerrillas.

The rescue was a coup for U.S. ally President Alvaro Uribe and raised the possibility that Latin America's oldest left-wing insurgency is in collapse after it was duped into handing its biggest bargaining chip to the military in the steamy jungles.

Betancourt, a French-Colombian citizen kidnapped during her 2002 presidential campaign, threw her arms tightly around her two adult children, their eyes tearful a day after her captors unwittingly freed her, three Americans and 11 Colombians.

"What I'm feeling now is something very close to paradise," Betancourt told reporters on the runway of the airport in Bogota.

"These are my babies, my pride, my reason for living, my light, my moon, my stars, she said. "Forgive me for saying it, but I think they are very good looking."

Her son and daughter, Lorenzo and Melanie, flew from Paris with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner as soon as they got news of their mother's rescue from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Betancourt, 46, said her captivity in secret camps, sometimes chained by the neck and desperate for medicine to relieve jungle illnesses, had driven her to think of suicide.

The bloodless rescue operation increases public confidence in the short, bespectacled and iron-willed Uribe, whose father was killed in a botched FARC kidnapping two decades ago.

He is hugely popular for his anti-rebel offensive and his growth-oriented economic policies. The rescue shored up Uribe's support at a time when many of his followers want to change the constitution to let him run for a third term in 2010.

Stocks and the peso currency surged as investors showed increased political confidence in Colombia. The rescue followed the death of three FARC leaders this year and a call from the group's top ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for them to negotiate for peace.

The outlawed rebel army, once a 17,000-member force able to frequently attack major cities, has been driven back by Uribe into remote areas and now has about 9,000 combatants.

"The FARC is terminally ill and every day it is closer to disappearing for good," Martha Lucia Ramirez, a congresswoman and former defense minister said.

AMERICANS FREED

The United States said it was aware of the rescue plan but stressed that it was a Colombian operation.

It has given Colombia more than $5.5 billion in mostly military aid since 2000. U.S. troops in Colombia often help security forces analyze intelligence and plan missions.

The three freed Americans, defense contractors Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes were flown to the United States after five years in captivity.

Colombia said the rescue mission hinged on soldiers posing as members of a fictitious group apparently sympathetic to the rebels. Supposedly they were going to transport the hostages to a FARC commander's camp by helicopter.

Once the aircraft was in the air, the soldiers disarmed two guerrillas and informed the hostages that they were free.

The rescue increases pressure on the outlawed rebel army.

"The only option left for the FARC is to take a more political approach to the Colombian government," said Pablo Casas, an analyst at Bogota think tank Security and Democracy.

"They will have to change their approach based on the success of Uribe's military policies. Even Chavez says they should stop their use of kidnapping and other violent strategies," Casas said.

The FARC, considered a terrorist organization by U.S. and European officials, still holds hundreds of other hostages, some of whom have been held for a decade. It wants to swap 25 high-profile captives for jailed guerrilla fighters but is arguing with the government over the terms of an exchange.

Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary who has been at odds with Uribe over his support for the rebels, called the Colombian leader to congratulate him and again urged the rebels to focus on negotiations.

"Now is not the time for guerrilla battles," he said.

(Editing by Saul Hudson and Frances Kerry)