Colombia accepts Venezuela help for hostage release

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia agreed on Wednesday to allow Venezuelan planes and helicopters to land in the country and pick up three hostages held for years by Marxist guerrillas, including a child born in captivity.

The plan was proposed earlier by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fiery left-wing leader who has been negotiating with Colombia's guerrilla leaders and is authorized by them to receive the captives.

It was greeted as a breakthrough by family members of the captives.

Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said the government approved Chavez's proposal for Venezuelan aircraft bearing the insignia of the Red Cross to pick up the hostages from inside Colombia.

"We authorize this humanitarian mission on its own terms," Araujo said.

Under Chavez's plan, an air convoy will fly to the central Colombian town of Villavicencio at the foot of the Andes mountains and then dispatch helicopters to a still unknown meeting point to pick up the hostages.

Earlier this month, rebel leaders promised to free Clara Rojas, captured during her 2002 vice presidential campaign, and her young son Emmanuel, fathered by one of her guerrilla captors, as well as former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez, who was kidnapped in 2001.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe last month told Chavez to stay out of hostage negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but the anti-American firebrand continued to talk with the rebel army, which says it wants to turn the hostages over to him or someone he designates.

Rojas's brother Ivan Rojas told reporters in Colombia that he supports Chavez's plan. "We are very optimistic that this will turn out well," he said.

Chavez said the operation would begin within hours once he received Colombia's authorization.

The release of the three hostages could help set the stage for an exchange of other kidnap victims, including three U.S. contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, for Colombian guerrillas locked in government jails.

Betancourt was a presidential candidate in 2002 when she and Rojas, her running mate, were captured by FARC rebels.

The three Americans -- Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves -- were captured during a mission to spot illicit coca crops in 2003.

Uribe, popular for his U.S.-backed crackdown on the FARC, has offered to designate a limited safe area to swap these and dozens of other high-profile captives for jailed rebels.

But the FARC insists he pull troops from a larger zone of its choosing to facilitate an exchange. The rebels want to enter that zone armed, which Uribe says he will not allow.