Colombian Guerillas : 60 Years for US Hostages

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian guerrillas vowed Saturday to hold three U.S. hostages for "60 years in a jungle prison," because a U.S. court sentenced a fellow rebel to a similar term in their kidnapping.

The three U.S. defense contractors, captured when their plane went down in rebel-held jungles in February 2003, will remain hostages for that time unless U.S. and Colombian officials release captive guerrillas, Ivan Marquez of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was quoted as saying.

Marquez, a senior member of the FARC whose real name is Marin Arango, spoke in an interview posted Saturday on the left-wing Bolivarian Press Agency's Web site, which has carried interviews with the guerrillas and published their statements in the past.

His comments follow the January sentencing of FARC commander Ricardo Palmera, known as "Simon Trinidad," who was extradited to the U.S. and convicted in the three contractors' kidnapping. A federal judge in Washington D.C. gave him the maximum sentence of six decades in prison.

In the same interview, Marquez confirmed that the FARC will soon release four Colombian politicians held captive for years, including ailing former congressman Jorge Gechem.

The FARC, listed as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the U.S. government, wants to trade dozens of hostages, including the three contractors, for hundreds of rebels imprisoned in Colombia, along with Palmera and a female rebel commander also held in the U.S.

"The Colombian government and the White House should think about not putting any more obstacles in the way of a humanitarian exchange, because sentences like this, in the end, simply mean that the three North Americans will spend the next 60 years in a jungle prison, in the power of the FARC," Marquez said, according to the Web site.

The FARC have held the three contractors — Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — for five years, making them the longest-held U.S. hostages in the world, according to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

At least one of the hostages has been detained in the same camp as Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who marked her sixth year in captivity on Saturday.

Since their abduction, families of the U.S. hostages have only received two so-called proof of life videos, the last in November.

Colombia's government and the FARC guerrillas, who are in their fifth decade of bloody civil conflict, agree in general terms to a prisoners-for-hostages swap, but bickering over specifics scuttled negotiations before they could begin.

Even as some U.S. congressmen urge Colombia to deal with the FARC, the government of President Alvaro Uribe opposes bringing convicted rebels back from U.S. prisons, worrying the move could weaken extradition policy — a key weapon in its fight against the world's largest cocaine industry.