Colombia Gives Land To Get Soldiers Back

One of the most humiliating hostage ordeals in recent Latin American history came to an end Sunday when 70 soldiers and marines held by Marxist rebels went free.

Most of the soldiers were captured more than nine months ago when guerrillas overran a remote military base.

White streamers festooned the jungle town of Cartagena del Chaira, where the 70 troops embraced family members in tearful hugs after a short ceremony.

But the freeing of the soldiers arrived only after extraordinary concessions by Colombia’s military, which has been battered by leftist insurgents financed by the cocaine trade. Surrendering to guerrilla demands, the army retreated temporarily from a jungle region the size of Jamaica.

No other army in South America is known to have pulled out of part of its national territory under pressure by guerrillas - even provisionally.

“What happens next? That’s the question,” said the Rev. Gabriel Izquierdo, a Jesuit priest and member of a national conciliation commission. “The army is wounded. It feels it is in a corner.”