Colombian hostage rescue deal crumbles

VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia (Reuters) - A delicate mission to free three hostages held by Colombian guerrillas appeared to collapse on Monday as the government and rebel leaders accused each other of trying to kill the deal.

The Venezuela-led plan to pick up two women hostages and a child born to one of them in captivity has been repeatedly delayed since last Thursday and rebel leaders said intense army operations in the jungle region made it impossible for now.

"In these conditions it would put in grave risk the lives of these people to free them," the rebels said in a letter sent to Venezuela's left-wing President Hugo Chavez, who had negotiated the deal for the release of the three hostages.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe rejected the allegation and accused rebel commanders of inventing excuses.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, promised earlier this month to deliver the three to Chavez, and he sent two helicopters to this town deep inside Colombia last Friday to pick them up.

Chavez read out the FARC's letter explaining its failure to say where the hostages were, and he accused Uribe of sabotaging his rescue plan.

"Uribe went to dynamite the third phase of this operation," Chavez said, adding that independent reports also pointed to an intensification of Colombian military activity in the area.

Foreign envoys, including former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, had gone to Colombia to help the mission but flew back to Caracas on Monday night, although Chavez said his helicopters would stay.

"Unless we are thrown out of Colombia, we will stay," he said, adding that he was in contact with the guerrillas and still hoped they would tell him where the hostages were.

Uribe, a conservative who has clashed repeatedly with Chavez, denied military operations had prevented the handover.

"The FARC terrorist group has no excuses. They have always used excuses to deceive Colombia and now they want to deceive the international community. They are lying," he said in the central city of Villavicencio, where the Venezuelan helicopters waited to be dispatched for the handover.

He offered, however, to halt army patrols in an area designated by the FARC once they reveal the location of their captives.

The three hostages are Consuelo Gonzalez, Clara Rojas and her son Emmanuel, who was fathered by a rebel fighter and is thought to be four years old.

BORN IN REBEL CAMP

Uribe, whose father was killed by rebels, suggested the FARC had backed off because they no longer have Rojas's son, saying a child fitting his description was turned over to child welfare authorities and is living in the capital city Bogota. He said the child showed marks of torture.

Rojas was kidnapped during her 2002 vice presidential campaign and Gonzalez, a former lawmaker, was taken in 2001.

In its letter to Chavez, the FARC said it was still committed to handing over the hostages.

"As soon as we can find a place that offers us security, we will be in touch to reactivate the mechanisms that will make possible the safe return of Clara, Emmanuel and Consuelo," it said.

Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States, had earlier speculated that radio interference by U.S. forces deployed in Colombia to back its war against the FARC and drug traffickers could be to blame.

Colombia is suspicious of Chavez and his dream of uniting South America under socialism but it last week agreed to let him fly helicopters marked with the Red Cross symbol deep into its territory to collect the hostages.

The FARC's promise to release the three hostages had raised hopes for a broader deal to free other high-profile captives, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, in exchange for jailed rebels.

Villavicencio is a gateway to Colombia's sparsely populated southern jungles, where the FARC controls areas used to produce the cocaine that funds its insurgency. The group is holding more than 700 hostages for ransom and political leverage.

(Additional reporting by Hugh Bronstein in Bogota and Frank Jack Daniel in Caracas; Editing by Kieran Murray)