(Recasts with comments from vice president on hostages) By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Colombia blamed guerrillas on Wednesday for the deaths of two kidnapped soldiers, the latest incident to complicate efforts to free hostages held for years in Latin America's oldest conflict. The Red Cross said guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia, or FARC, had informed it the two soldiers snatched in March died while in captivity, but gave no further details about their deaths. "For the FARC, the lives of hostages mean nothing," Vice President Francisco Santos told reporters. "Here are two sergeants, two people in their hands, and they are the ones who are responsible for the hostages." President Alvaro Uribe and the country's largest rebel group are deadlocked over rebel demands he pull troops back to create a safe haven before talks on releasing hostages, who include a French-Colombian politician and three Americans. While violence from Colombia's four-decade-old conflict has ebbed under Uribe's U.S.-backed rule, the FARC is still fighting and holding scores of hostages in jungle camps for political leverage. It wants them swapped for jailed rebels. The plight of the hostages came under renewed scrutiny recently when the FARC said 11 local lawmakers it kidnapped five years ago had been killed. The government accused the guerrillas of murdering the men. "I ask the FARC for a favor, a humanitarian gesture, that they hand over the bodies, now that they have not respected their lives," said Ana Lucia Marin, mother of one of the two dead soldiers, told local radio. Uribe, a hard-liner whose father was killed years ago in a FARC kidnap attempt, last week said he would offer a safe haven for peace talks if the rebels release their hostages. But he has refused to yield to a demand he demilitarize an area the size of New York City for hostage talks. France, Spain and Switzerland are involved in efforts to free hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian national who was kidnapped while campaigning for Colombia's presidency in 2002, and three U.S. contract workers snatched in 2003 while on a counternarcotics mission.
