(Recasts with Uribe comments) By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe demanded on Friday that FARC guerrillas free sick hostages, including French-Colombian captive Ingrid Betancourt who said "death seems like a sweet option." Details of Betancourt's grave condition after six years in captivity were revealed this week by former hostages released in a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose participation has fueled a diplomatic dispute with Bogota. "We call for the immediate, unilateral release of hostages whose health is affected, who are sick," Uribe told reporters. "We are hoping for a way to free those who are ill, whose health is at risk, where the government can contribute." The plight of Colombia's hostages is increasingly becoming an international concern with France, Switzerland and Spain engaged in efforts to broker a deal between U.S. ally Uribe and the FARC to exchange rebel captives for jailed guerrillas. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has freed six hostages this year to Chavez, and former captives say Betancourt, an ex-Colombian presidential candidate with French nationality, is very sick with liver ailments and depression. "I am tired of suffering, of carrying it within me every day, of lying to myself and of seeing that every day is the same hell as the one before," Betancourt writes in excerpts from a letter published by Spain's Noticias Cuatro channel. "I feel like the life of my children is on standby, waiting for me to be free and their daily suffering makes death seem like a sweet option," she wrote. Betancourt's husband told Caracol radio in Bogota that the excepts came from letters she had written to him and that were found with captured rebels late last year as part of a package of documents and videos showing hostages in the jungle. Betancourt and three U.S. contract workers are among 40 high-profile hostages the FARC says it wants to exchange for jailed rebel fighters in a humanitarian accord. Attempts to broker a broad agreement are stalled. Chavez, who says socialism counters U.S. influence, has persuaded the Marxist-inspired FARC to unilaterally free some hostages in the first releases under Uribe, who is popular for his tough stance against the guerrillas. But the Venezuelan leader has angered Washington and Bogota by calling for more political recognition for the rebels, who U.S. and European officials label a cocaine-trafficking terrorist group. Violence from Colombia's four-decade conflict has waned under Uribe, who has sent troops to retake parts of the country under the sway of armed groups. But the FARC still is a potent force in remote rural areas. (Editing by Philip Barbara)
Freed Colombian lawmaker Jorge Gechem attends a news conference in Caracas February 28, 2008. Marxist FARC rebels freed four lawmakers held hostage for years in Colombia's jungle on Wednesday, in a ...
