Colombia tells "incoherent" FARC to free hostages

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia on Saturday called on leftist guerrillas to unconditionally free hostages after saying the rebels lied in an "incoherent" way about the whereabouts of a young boy they promised to free last month.

Emmanuel, a 3- or 4-year-old child born to a kidnapped mother and a guerrilla father in a secret jungle camp, was to be turned over by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a rescue mission sponsored by neighboring Venezuela.

The plan crumbled on New Year's Eve as the FARC blamed Colombian army operations for disrupting the hand-over. The government called that charge a lie and announced the boy had not been in FARC custody since 2005 but was instead living in a Bogota foster home.

The FARC in turn admitted it did not have the boy and accused the government of snatching him to scuttle the hand-over mission and discredit the four-decade-old guerrilla army.

"They recognize their lie, but now the kidnapper is the government?" Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said on Saturday. "The FARC is more incoherent every day, capping one lie with another."

The rebels said in December they would free Emmanuel along with his mother, Clara Rojas, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a lawmaker captured in 2001.

Restrepo said the only thing left for the FARC to do was unconditionally release the two women.

Both sides are deadlocked over terms for swapping dozens of high-profile hostages for jailed guerrillas. Conservative President Alvaro Uribe refuses the FARC's demand that he pull troops from a rural area to allow armed rebels to enter and free the captives.

The cocaine-funded guerrilla army is holding about 750 kidnap victims for ransom and political leverage. They include French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was captured in 2002 along with Rojas, and three Americans seized in 2003.

Some analysts predicted that after the spat over Emmanuel both sides will dig in their heels, making hostage talks even more difficult.

Others said the FARC had been so discredited by the episode that it has to free hostages as a step toward its goal of being taken off the European Union's list of terrorist groups.

"They have to try to do something constructive rather than sitting back and letting the government score point after point," said a source who asked not to be named and who was closely involved in last month's failed mission.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)