THE families of 45 hostages held by Colombian rebels now know their loved ones are still alive, but that their chances of freedom are more remote than ever.
On Thursday night, police in Bogota arrested three suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who were in possession of five videos showing 16 hostages, among them French citizen Ingrid Betancourt, three US intelligence op
eratives, former Colombian senator Luis Eladio Perez and 12 security officers.
While relatives were glad to see their loved ones alive, there was shock at the state of the French-Colombian politician Ms Betancourt. Her mother, Yolanda Pulecio, said: "I had the feeling that Ingrid was alive, but I also knew the conditions. This has been too painful for all of us, a calvary."
The tapes, played with no sound at a news conference, showed an extremely gaunt and long-haired Ms Betancourt, apparently chained and in a jungle setting, staring blankly at the ground. No images of her had been seen since 2003.
The news she was alive was welcomed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who has made her liberation one of his foreign policy priorities.
The hostages, some of whom have spent ten years in captivity are being held by the FARC for a prisoner exchange.
The guerrillas want hundreds of their comrades held in Colombian and United States jails freed. Negotiations between the FARC and Alvaro Uribe, the Washington-backed president, have not even got off the ground. There had been hope of progress when President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was invited to act as mediator, but Mr Uribe ended his involvement last week after it became clear that Mr Chavez was not acting within the limits set by the Colombian government.
Washington, maintaining its policy that it does not negotiate with terrorists, has left all dialogue with the FARC to Mr Uribe, who has refused to accept rebel terms for a negotiation which include the granting of a large safe haven for the guerrillas.
Americans Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Howes, captured when their spy plane crash-landed in guerrilla territory in 2003, appeared to be in better health than Ms Betancourt, who Mr Uribe said "bore signs of torture".
In the images, the Americans, all dressed in T-shirts and rubber boots typical of the rebels, each stand alone on the screen, looking haggard. In one shot, a rebel stands guard in the background, his hand clasping his rifle.
Tales of the conditions under which the hostages are being held came to light when a policeman, Jhon Pinchao, 31, held captive for eight years, managed to escape in April this year. For 17 days, he wandered the dense jungles of eastern Colombia until bumping into an army patrol. They almost shot him, shocked by the appearance of an apparently delirious madman covered in leaves charging through the undergrowth.
He reported seeing Ms Betancourt alive, and said she had made several attempts to escape, being harshly punished by her captors after each effort.
Last December, another hostage, Fernando Araujo, now Colombia's foreign minister, escaped when security forces attacked the FARC camp in which he was being held. During the fire-fight, he managed to crawl away and fled to the mountains.
In June this year, 11 hostages were killed by their rebel captors. The guerrillas claimed they had been ambushed and that the hostages, all politicians from the city of Cali, had been killed in the crossfire. But forensic analysis showed they were shot from behind, some at very close range. Intelligence sources believe they were killed after two FARC units bumped into each other believing they were under attack by the army. The guerrillas have orders to kill the hostages rather then let them be rescued.
FARC UNLIKELY TO RELEASE HIGH-PROFILE HOSTAGE
I INTERVIEWED Ingrid Betancourt just days before she was taken in February 2002. Then, aged 41, she was one of Colombia's most glamorous politicians, blonde, dynamic, indefatigable and able to flit between three languages without accent or effort.
The photograph just released by the government shows a drawn, emaciated and apparently beaten woman, looking much older than her 46 years, a chain clearly visible on her wrist, linked to the bench she is sitting on, the result of numerous escape bids.
The founder of the Green Oxygen Party, she was elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1994 and became a senator in 1998.
She maintained a fiercely anti-corruption stance, which made her some powerful enemies.
A book she wrote in 1998 outlining her beliefs, La rabia en el corazón could not be published immediately in Colombia, perhaps because of her remarks about former president Ernesto Samper and others, so it came out first in France as La rage au coeur ("Rage in the Heart").
She was running for the Colombian presidency when she was taken at a rebel roadblock in the southern province of Caquetá in 2002. She had travelled against the advice of the security forces, counting on her popularity and left wing politics to protect her.
She was mistaken, and her prominence just ensured she became the trump card the FARC now holds - with little sign of letting go.
