BOGOTA, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Two Colombian soldiers kidnapped by Marxist rebels have died in captivity, complicating efforts to broker a deal to free hostages held for years in Latin America's oldest guerrilla war. The Red Cross said on Tuesday that guerrillas told it the two soldiers, who were snatched in March this year, died while in captivity, but gave no further details. "They told us that they were dead, and that were going to try to get them to hand over the bodies," Ana Lucia Marin, the mother of one of the soldiers, told the Caracol radio station. President Alvaro Uribe and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are deadlocked over rebel demands that he pull troops back to create a safe haven zone 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 secret jungle camps for ransom and 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. Uribe, a hardliner whose own father was killed 20 years ago in a FARC kidnap attempt, last week said he would offer a safe haven for peace talks if the rebels release hostages. But he has refused to yield to a demand that he demilitarize an area the size of New York City for hostage talks. Among the key hostages are Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national who was kidnapped while campaigning for Colombia's presidency in 2002, and three U.S. contract workers snatched in 2003.
