Chavez's Efforts Pay Off. Four Hostages Released

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There are an awful lot more being held captive but fair play to you Hugo it's a start. No doubt there will be another black mark chalked up in the Whitehouse against dear old Chavez, humanity is not something that is in the Neocon handbook.

Marxist rebels freed four Colombian hostages from their "living death" in the jungle on Wednesday in a victory for Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, who brokered the deal.

Venezuelan helicopters painted with Red Cross logos swooped into dense jungle, picked up the four lawmakers -- all taken by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, more than six years ago -- and flew them to Venezuela.

"I was the living dead but today ... I am happy, lucky, radiant," ex-hostage Gloria Polanco said. She carried long-stemmed flowers for her three children, adding between sobs, "It's the only thing I can take from the jungle."

Flanked by armed rebels, the three men and Polanco trekked down a muddy slope of a jungle clearing near this steamy town and pumped their hands in the air to celebrate their release by Latin America's oldest insurgency.

They appeared generally in sound health, although one of the men, who had suffered heart problems, looked gaunt.more

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