Millions Rally for Colombian Hostages

Protests Condemn Kidnappings By FARC Rebels

BOGOTA, Colombia, July 20 -- In the letters María Teresa de Mendieta received from her husband, he spoke of a jungle-borne disease that had so infected his legs that he had to drag himself through the mud to go to the bathroom. He wrote of being chained at the neck with other hostages held by Colombian guerrillas, and of losing track of time after a decade trudging through the rain forest.

The letters from Luis Mendieta, a police colonel, painted a picture of savagery at the hands of Latin America's last major rebel group -- powerful imagery that rebel commanders made public this year. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia calculated that releasing the proof-of-life letters, as well as liberating six hostages in carefully choreographed events, would give it the international relevance it craved after four decades of fruitless armed struggle.

Instead, the strategy backfired with a vengeance. It whipped up the wrath of millions of Colombians, who on Sunday participated in hundreds of anti-rebel protests in this country and dozens more as far away as New York, Washington, Paris and other cities around the world.

The worldwide condemnation of the rebels' tactics has helped solidify President Álvaro Uribe's hard-line position against the group. Even Cuba's former president, Fidel Castro, who once backed rebel movements in Colombia, recently lashed out at the guerrillas and said their kidnappings served no revolutionary purpose.

The FARC, as the group is known, is now more isolated than ever.

A 44-year-old organization that just a few years ago was at the gates of Bogota is now in a political and ideological crisis that comes as Colombia's increasingly competent army fences guerrilla units into the country's far fringes.

Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician who, until her rescue July 2, was the rebels' most prominent hostage, said at a rally in Paris that it was time for the FARC to stop fighting. Directing her words at the group's top commander, Alfonso Cano, she said, "Understand that now is not the hour to shed more blood. It's time to lay down those weapons and exchange them for roses."

Betancourt's rescue, and that of 14 others, including three Americans, only brought more attention to the horrors of kidnapping as the former prisoners recounted their years in captivity. The Free Country Foundation in Bogota, a policy analysis group that studies kidnapping and lobbies for the families of hostages, says nearly 700 hostages remain under FARC control.

"There is repudiation of an organization that causes pain and suffering, when there's no justified reason or cause," said de Mendieta, sitting in the dining room of her Bogota apartment, which is decorated with pictures of her husband in his police uniform. Her husband, now 51, was kidnapped in 1998 when the FARC leveled the jungle town of Mitu, killing or capturing the police defenders.

"The ideal would be for the FARC to liberate the hostages unconditionally," she said. "That would be logical, but their thinking is counterintuitive. I believe that. They do not have the same logic as we do."

This year, the FARC has lost three of its top seven commanders and seen its once-vigorous efforts at diplomacy fail to stem government efforts designed to isolate it. Meanwhile, Uribe, whose popularity rating shot past 85 percent in polls, has recently signaled that the government's negotiating position -- should FARC commanders decide to talk -- has hardened considerably, leaving the guerrillas with little chance of demanding concessions.

The possibility of a demilitarized zone, a longtime rebel stipulation for talks, is now unlikely, as is international mediation by such figures as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whom the guerrillas considered an ideological partner.