Millions Rally for Colombian Hostages

The government has also shown that it is willing to violate international norms if it means delivering an important strike against the FARC.

On March 1, Uribe authorized Colombian fighter planes to bomb a rebel camp just inside Ecuador, killing a top FARC commander. And in the rescue this month, Colombian army commandos deceived the FARC into simply handing over the hostages by posing as relief workers. One commando even wore a Red Cross logo, a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

"The Colombian government has never been stronger in military and, I would even say, in political terms than it is now," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

The Uribe administration, criticized internationally for the attack inside Ecuador, has mounted an aggressive diplomatic effort that has paid off.

On Saturday, Uribe signed a defense pact in Bogota with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that calls for closer cooperation between the two countries to defend their long, porous border, a stretch of wilderness FARC guerrillas have frequently crossed.

In Venezuela, Chávez, who this year praised FARC commanders and expressed his sympathy for their struggle, recently called on the group to unconditionally release all of its hostages. The populist leader also welcomed Uribe to Venezuela, calling a man he had likened to a Mafia chieftain "a brother."

The new political realities have helped suffocate the FARC's diplomatic efforts, closing its space to maneuver. Communist Party leaders in Bogota have taken to calling for the FARC to negotiate, and small support groups in Europe have been under pressure to stop venerating the rebel group.

"The FARC has never had less political space than now," Arnson said. "The fact that even President Chávez has called on them to end the war has added to the pressure for them to negotiate a settlement, to come to terms that there is no such thing as a military victory."

Colombia remains a country of widespread poverty and social inequality, but few Colombians see the FARC as an alternative -- or of even having the legitimacy to highlight the country's problems.

"How ideologically isolated are they? Totally," said Liduine Zumpolle, a onetime critic of the government who now leads a group of former FARC rebels critical of the group.

"They're completely irrelevant," she said. "I think today the FARC has totally lost moral support."

Indeed, in February, after the FARC released two hostages to Venezuela's government, Colombians held international protests that helped direct a critical spotlight on the group.