8 Colombian Hostages Freed; Many Remain

As eight victims of a rebel airline hijacking were freed Friday, delays in releasing remaining hostages from two mass abductions by guerrillas are placing added strains on Colombia’s fragile peace process.

Rebels had been expected to set free this week most of the nearly 100 hostages left from the audacious hijacking of a domestic Avianca airline flight in April and a raid last month on a church in a wealthy neighborhood in the city of Cali.

Instead, the National Liberation Army, Colombia’s second-largest insurgent group known by the initials ELN, still retains at least 46 hostages. Further complicating matters are reports that the families of some of the more than 30 churchgoers still in rebel custody have received ransom demands for what were thought to be a political abductions.

Tuesday, 33 churchgoers were released under the supervision of mediators from Germany, Spain and Venezuela. Elderly and ill people from both kidnappings had been freed earlier, although one man died of a heart attack in rebel hands.

“At the moment they did not return all the kidnapping victims, the victims became hostages,” said Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, a former foreign minister who is advising the government on the peace process. “These are terrorist acts that have caused [the rebels] to lose credibility.”

President Andres Pastrana has said he will not negotiate with the ELN while the guerrillas hold any hostages from the two mass abductions.

The rebels have insisted that both the hijacking and church raid were political kidnappings, meant to show their military strength and to get peace talks started. The government is currently talking with the larger Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces rebel group.

The hijacking and church raid brought what had been a mainly rural conflict to the doors of city dwellers, increasing both urban Colombians’ sense of insecurity and pressure on the government to make peace.

The acts also created a backlash against the ELN, which has cultivated international contacts and developed an image of having relatively more political and human rights sensitivity than other groups in Colombia’s prolonged armed conflict.

Colombia’s rebel groups routinely kidnap ranchers, merchants and their family members for ransom to raise money for their three-decade fight against the government.