Hostage Betancourt chained up by Colombia rebels

By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian rebels chained ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt to a tree and forced her to go without boots as a punishment after she tried to flee her jungle camp, said a fellow captive freed this week.

After six years in rebel hands, French-Colombian politician Betancourt is suffering from hepatitis and liver ailments with little medicine to stop her deterioration, said Luis Eladio Perez, an ex-lawmaker freed on Wednesday with three others.

Details of Betancourt's poor conditions emerged after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez brokered the deal for the rebels to free the four hostages in the second such operation by the left-wing leader since the start of the year.

Perez said Betancourt persuaded him two years ago to escape into the jungle, but after five days swimming rivers, fighting humidity, eating raw fish and evading rebel captors his spirit broke and they surrendered to face rebel punishment.

"I was weak and couldn't resist ... we decided to hand ourselves in and immediately came the repression. We were chained to trees 24 hours a day. They took away our boots," he told Colombia's Caracol radio.

"For the FARC, Ingrid is the golden treasure in this wretched process," he said in the interview.

Letters written by three U.S. hostages to President George W. Bush, U.S. presidential candidates and their families begging that they not be left to rot in the jungle were confiscated after rebels found them hidden on his body.

U.S. Defense Department contractors, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, were captured in February 2003 after their light aircraft crashed in the jungles while on a counter-narcotics mission.

Perez said they fear they will be abandoned after a U.S. court sentenced a rebel commander to 60 years in prison. The FARC have said that commander and another guerrilla held in a U.S. prison must be swapped for the three Americans.

"We have very low morale, they think they are going to face the same sentence in the Colombian jungle," he said.

Betancourt and the three Americans are among 40 high-profile hostages who the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, wants to exchange for jailed rebels though attempts at talks are stalled.

"ENJOY EVERY MOMENT, ENJOY"

Families have praised Chavez for managing to persuade the Marxist rebels to hand over some hostages. But the U.S. foe has angered Washington and Bogota by calling for more recognition for the rebels, who U.S. officials list as terrorists.

The release of Betancourt, snatched while campaigning for the presidency, has become a foreign policy priority for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said on Thursday he was willing to go personally to Colombia to guarantee her handover.

Images from a rebel video released late last year show her gaunt and despondent in her jungle camp.