In Colombia, Freedom Nears After 14-Year Captivity

Sgt. Luis Alfonso Beltran has endured 14 years of jungle prisons as a captive of leftist rebels while three of his aunts and uncles died and eight new nieces and nephews have been born.

Now, finally, he is expected to be freed.

Beltran, 43, and fellow Sgt. Luis Arturo Arcia are the longest-held captives of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, taken in a March 3, 1998, rebel ambush that killed more than 60 soldiers.

The FARC announced last weekend that it will shortly release all remaining "prisoners of war" and halt all ransom kidnappings, which along with the cocaine trade have funded its nearly five-decade-old insurgency.

No one could be happier than Beltran's 70-year-old mother, Virginia Franco, who keeps vigils in a small, concrete home with light green walls in a poor barrio in Bogota's south that she shares with another son and his family of four.

"There hasn't been a single party in my house in 14 years, because all the happiness died," said Franco. "All that keeps me alive is the hope that my son returns, and my grandchildren."

This past week there was more heartache. Beltran's favorite aunt died.

In contrast to such celebrated FARC hostages as former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was freed along with three U.S. military contractors in 2008 and went on to write a highly praised memoir, few Colombians know the faces of the plebeian Beltran and Arcia.

The last proof of life for both men, who were bachelors at the time of their capture, came in September 2009 in video obtained from a captured FARC courier.

Cristina Arcia says her brother, who is now 41, barely speaks in the video and looks "mistreated, aged, ruined because they didn't let him enjoy his youth and have a dignified life."

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In Colombia, Freedom Nears After 14-Year Captivity