Ex-hostage hugs children after blow to Colombia rebels

By Hugh Bronstein

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.