Colombians hope Chavez can help free hostages

CARACAS, Aug 21 (Reuters) Relatives of Colombians kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the left-wing leader vowed he would try to break a deadlock over releasing hostages.

Chavez has offered to act as an intermediary between Colombian guerrillas still fighting a 40-year conflict and the administration of conservative President Alvaro Uribe who has led a US-backed military crackdown on the rebels.

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has held hundreds of police, soldiers and politicians for years, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, snatched in 2002, and three Americans kidnapped while on a counter-narcotics mission the year after.

''As of this encounter I will not rest in the search (of an agreement),'' said Chavez yesterday, the most visible leader of resurgent leftist politics in Latin America, during a televised meeting with the delegation.

''Just as I have asked the head of the FARC (to cooperate), and maybe they will hear this message, I also have to ask the same of President Uribe.'' The delegation includes Betancourt's mother and some relatives of 11 local legislators kidnapped five years ago and killed recently in violence the Colombian government blamed on guerrillas.

Chavez asked Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba, a Chavez sympathizer whom Uribe has named as an intermediary, to help him make contact with the FARC's leadership.

He promised to act as ''an observer and a guarantor'' of the effort to seek a hostage exchange.

Uribe and Chavez are scheduled to meet in Bogota on August 31 to continue the talks.

''We have always asked for a meeting zone to be established, but the important thing is for the FARC and the government to sit down face to face,'' Angela de Perez, the wife of a kidnapped lawmaker, told Colombia's Caracol television.

''I hope we can do something,'' Chavez, said during an afternoon speech. ''Maybe after today's meeting I will be obligated to seek contact with the guerrillas.'' Uribe has fostered an image as a hard-nosed leader who has openly confronted the guerrilla groups and negotiated the surrender of right-wing paramilitary death squads in a campaign to reduce Colombia's violence.

The FARC want Uribe to demilitarize an area the size of New York City in southern Colombia to help talks over swapping key hostages for jailed rebels. Uribe has released some guerrillas in a good-will gesture, but refuses to withdraw troops under the rebels' conditions.

US officials have charged that Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, has openly aided FARC rebels, without presenting evidence to support the charges.

Uribe and Chavez have clashed over problems patrolling the two nation's porous border, and in 2005 Chavez cut economic ties to Colombia after bounty hunters snatched a FARC leader in Caracas without Venezuelan involvement. But the ideologically opposed leaders say they maintain good ties.

REUTERS SV PM0949