Colombia rebels free kidnapped police in gesture

BOGOTA, Dec 28 (Reuters) Colombia's second-largest rebel group released two police officers after holding them for a month in what appeared to be a peace gesture during talks with Washington ally President Alvaro Uribe.

The 5,000-member National Liberation Army, or ELN, has been in exploratory talks with Uribe over ending the country's four-decade insurgency, but negotiations have been stymied over a possible cease-fire by the guerrillas.

ELN rebels handed over two police officers snatched on December 1 to a delegation from the government peace commissioner's office and the International Committee of the Red Cross in a rural part of southern Narino province bordering Ecuador.

''The ELN handed over officers Guillermo Calderon and Vladimir Meza Garcia,'' the Red Cross said in a statement yesterday.

Violence and kidnapping from Colombia's conflict have decreased under Uribe, whose US-backed security crackdown has pushed back the largest rebel group -- the FARC -- and demobilized illegal paramilitaries who once fought the guerrillas.

But the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is still fighting, although Washington is pumping millions of dollars of aid to Uribe each year to battle the rebels and the huge cocaine trade that helps fund their operations.

Hundreds of troops are killed and thousands of civilians forced from their homes each year by fighting.

Local media reported ELN negotiators also agreed to help clear land mines they laid. Three Colombians are maimed on average each day by land mines placed mainly by the FARC.

During a fourth round of talks between the government and the ELN in Havana in October, the two sides agreed on a general framework for future peace talks, but they disagreed on how to reach a cease-fire before real negotiations.

''This is an act of good faith which doesn't change the dynamics of the negotiations in Cuba. But I think it will reinforce confidence between the two sides,'' said Alfredo Rangel, former defense adviser to Uribe who now runs the Bogota-based Security and Democracy think tank.

The ELN began as a Cuba-inspired insurgency in the 1960s established by radical students and priests. The group has relied on extortion and kidnapping to finance its operations and is holding about 300 hostages in secret camps.

Uribe recently allowed European negotiators to reach out to the FARC to start talks on releasing hostages it is holding, including French-Colombian national Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors captured nearly four years ago.

The FARC wants the government to withdraw troops from an area the size of New York City to guarantee security while it negotiates an exchange of 62 hostages for jailed rebel commanders, including two held in the United States.

Reuters SBA VP0550