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VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia-Colombian rebels Monday said they would not now be able to release three hostages as planned, accusing the Colombian government of failing to guarantee the guerrillas' safety.The release of two women held for more than five years in the Amazon jungle, and a three-year-old boy born in captivity, hit a new snag Monday after days of frantic preparations."Intense military operations in the zone make it impossible now" to release the three, the Marxist FARC rebels said in a statement read by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been spearheading the delicate mission."To continue under these conditions would endanger the lives of the people to be released, the other prisoners of war and the guerrillas carrying out this mission," the rebel statement added.Helicopters have been on stand-by here since Friday awaiting word to fly into the jungle to pick up Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel born in captivity, and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez.Chavez said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, one of the world's oldest insurgencies, had called for a "real ceasefire" before letting the hostages go.But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denied reports of fighting and said Bogota had agreed to open a safe corridor for the mission, which is operating under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)."We were asked to establish a kind of strategic corridor. We accept this," Uribe said, adding "there has not been any fighting in this area."Uribe, who arrived in this Colombian city earlier Monday to meet international observers taking part in "Operation Emmanuel," stressed his government had provided all the security guarantees that were asked for."What has the attitude of the FARC been? One of lies, and cheating," Uribe said in a speech shown on television, accusing the rebels of deliberately delaying the hostages' release.Gonzalez and Rojas were snatched in 2001 and 2002 respectively.Rojas was a top aide to Franco-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was seized at the same time and was not due to be released with the others.But Uribe raised the possibility the rebels could not complete the handover of the hostages as they were no longer holding the little boy."The FARC can't keep the promise to free the hostages because they no longer have the child, Emmanuel, in their power," Uribe said, suggesting instead that a boy found in July 2006 in southeast Colombia was Emmanuel-he was being cared for in a children's home in Bogota.Uribe proposed that DNA tests be carried out on the child and Emmanuel's grandmother to see if they were related.The FARC has been fighting to overthrow the government for decades and holds hundreds of hostages including Betancourt and three US contractors whose plane was shot down in 2003.The hostage handover had been due to take place in the 310,000-square-kilometer (120,000-square-mile) wilderness of central and southeastern Colombia, where there are few roads but numerous landing strips used by drug traffickers.As in the days of Noah....
