Colombia orders hunt for rebels after jungle talks

BOGOTA, Feb 22 (Reuters) Colombian President Alvaro Uribe ordered the military to intensify the hunt for rebels holding hostages today after rejecting a condition for their release delivered from the guerrilla's jungle hide-out.

The order scuttled hopes of breaking a deadlock over talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, which has held scores of hostages, including three US contractors, for years as part of Latin America's oldest rebel insurgency.

Uribe, a Washington ally popular for reducing violence with the help of a US-funded security crackdown, said a civilian emissary had returned from a jungle meeting with the FARC leadership with a demand and threats he could not accept.

''We authorized a Colombian citizen with contacts to make a gesture for a hostage exchange; he went in good faith for the government and brings back a FARC threat,'' Uribe said. ''Faced with this threat, we have to get tough with these bandits.'' The announcement is a set back for the families of politicians, police and soldiers held for as long as nine years in secret rebel camps. They want Uribe to negotiate an exchange of jailed guerrillas for 61 key hostages held by FARC.

The hostages include Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate captured five years ago this week, and three US citizens caught while on a drug eradication mission in 2003.

The FARC, which began fighting for land reform in the 1960s but is now deeply entrenched in Colombia's cocaine trade, wants the government to demilitarize two towns the size of New York City to facilitate talks.

Uribe, whose father was killed during a FARC kidnapping 20 years ago, had shown flexibility after his re-election last August, but toughened his position after a series of attacks blamed on the FARC at the end of last year.

He rejects a demilitarization and wants an act of good faith from the rebels, such as halting some hostilities.

''There is a deadlock over humanitarian exchange...That is the small key, the beginning of everything. I don't see any movement with the FARC in the near future,'' said Pablo Casas, an analyst with the Bogota think tank Security and Democracy.

Uribe is currently fending off a growing scandal linking some of his congressional allies to right-wing paramilitary gangs who fought a dirty war with the rebels before they reached a peace deal with the government.

The government this week starts a fifth round of talks with the second largest rebel group, National Liberation Army or ELN, in Havana in an effort to reach a peace deal. The ELN has been weakened by Uribe's military campaign.

REUTERS SAM PM2316