Colombia rebel group says it's freeing 'prisoners of war'

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's main rebel group said Sunday it is abandoning the practice of kidnapping and will soon free its last remaining "prisoners of war," ten security force members held for as long as 14 years.

The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced on its website that it would no longer kidnap civilians "for financial ends," marking the first time the rebels have unequivocally renounced a tool they have long employed against Colombia's well-heeled.

It is not clear whether an order has been given to release ransom-kidnapping victims currently held by the rebels, whose number is not known.

The FARC did not provide a date for the liberation of the 10 security force members, two fewer than the government says it holds.

Sunday's announcement could advance prospects for a peace dialogue sought by the rebels. The government has insisted the FARC end all kidnappings as a minimal first step.

The rebels did not say, however that they were was abandoning hostilities. The FARC has recently stepped up hit-and-run attacks and the military blames it for bombings and mortar attacks on two police posts in the past month that killed 15 people and wounded nearly 100, most of them civilians.

President Juan Manuel Santos responded to Sunday's statement positively but cautiously via Twitter.

"We value the FARC's announcement that it is renouncing kidnapping as an important and necessary, if insufficient, step in the right direction," he said.

In the 1990s, kidnappings by the FARC or by criminal gangs that sold the abducted to the rebels helped make Colombia the world's kidnapping capital. Rural highways became perilous scenes of "miracle fishing" by laptop-toting rebels who employed chamber of commerce databases at roadblocks to identify the wealthy.

Weakened by military pressure, the rebels have been hard pressed to house and feed hostages.

The FARC has been releasing captives piecemeal since early 2008, and some have been rescued by the military in operations such as the daring ruse that July that won freedom for a group including Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors.

As defence minister from 2006-2009, Santos oversaw operations that struck major blows to the FARC and led to unprecedented rebel desertions.

Since he took office in 2010, Colombia's military has tracked down and killed the rebels' two top leaders.

Santos has insisted on a halt to kidnapping as a minimal condition for peace talks that the FARC is seeking.

The FARC, which has about 9,000 fighters, said it was revoking a "law" its general staff approved in 2000, when Colombia's government ceded a Switzerland-sized swath of the country to the rebels for peace talks that failed two years later.

There was no halt in FARC hostilities during those talks and they collapsed after the rebels' high-profile kidnap of a lawmaker, Jorge Eduardo Gechem, who was held for six years before being released as a goodwill gesture.

Gechem was among the last political hostages freed by the FARC.

It is not known how many civilians the rebels currently hold -- the government does not provide figures -- but analysts say FARC revenues from ransom kidnappings now represent only a sliver of income for a group whose main revenue source is the cocaine trade.

Colombia's anti-kidnapping police said the FARC kidnapped 72 people during the first 11 months of 2011.

The director of the citizen's group Pais Libre, Olga Lucia Gomez, said it estimates that at least 500 Colombians are currently being held for ransom, with the FARC and the country's No. 2 rebel band, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, among those holding victims.

The FARC's fronts are spread all around Colombia and tend to operate with relative autonomy so it was not clear whether Sunday's announcement would mean the immediate release of civilians they currently hold for ransom.

The rebels announced on Dec. 27 that they would free six security force members but said a month later that they were delaying the release because of a government "militarization" of the area where the release was planned.

Brazil, which has provided the International Red Cross with helicopters in past FARC liberations, subsequently agreed to help arrange the release.

The December announcement came a month after the FARC executed three police officers and one soldier because army troops apparently happened upon their jungle camp.

Latin America's last major rebel movement, the FARC was founded in 1964. The United States and European Union consider it a terrorist organization.

In the 1980s, the FARC's kidnappings and extortion led wealthy ranchers and drug lords to create private far-right militias that evolved into the criminal gangs known as paramilitaries.