Colombia News: ELN Rebels Free Two Army Soldiers Held Hostage For Three Weeks

Rebels from the National Liberation Army or ELN have freed two Colombian Army soldiers that they have held hostage for three weeks, said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday.

The soldiers, who were captured during a combat with the ELN last October 26, when the leftist group ambushed a patrol in Guican, Bocaya, that was returning from an Indian reservation with ballots cast for the local and regional elections held the day before. Fox News said that the ELN announced on November 2 that they are holding captive two soldiers, and last week released an audiotape as proof that they are alive and well.

Both the soldiers were turned over to representatives from the ICRC, the Catholic Church, and the public defender's office "in a rural area of Arauca province" on the border of Venezuela. Depite being held in captive for three weeks, the ICRC in a statement noted that both were healthy enough to travel.

Christoph Harnisch, head of the ICRC delegation in Colombia noted that "The trust that both sides placed in the ICRC as a neutral intermediary was all-important for the operation."

"We are very pleased to report that this humanitarian operation was completed successfully. The most important thing is that these two people can now be reunited as soon as possible with their families and loved ones," he added.

The ELN is a smaller and less well-known rebel group than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, which have been negotiating peace talks with the government for three years. However, the ELN still has an estimated 2,000 fighters and even though some of their representatives have already held "exploratory discussions" as noted by Reuters, about a peace process. Formal negotiations have not been made yet.

However, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said at the time of the soldiers' capture that the insurgent group would not gain any advantage in the eventual talks by assaulting government troops even more than they already have -- as noted by Reuters, the group has already battled a dozen governments since its inception in 1964 and has continued kidnapping and attacking infrastructure during the said exploratory discussions.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post noted that the FARC's members are ready for peace, but that they fear giving up their guns in case the government fails to protect them from the myriad of enemies they have accosted over the years, including paramilitary groups, drug cartel assassins, and even civilians who may view their disarmament as an opportunity to get revenge.