Colombia on Thursday pardoned 23 left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as the two sides negotiated a prisoner swap. "We have decided to free 23 rebels," Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt told reporters. "These persons were pardoned for the crime of rebellion ... and agreed to renounce armed struggle."

Luis Carlos Restrepo, the government's peace commissioner who leads negotiations with Colombia's many rebel and paramilitary groups, called the move "a new attempt to convince the guerrillas to agree to a humanitarian accord."

President Alvaro Uribe announced in October that he was ready to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the country's largest rebel group.

On November 8, FARC leadership rejected Uribe's proposal to exchange 50 guerrillas for 59 hostages held by the FARC: three Americans, 34 military and police officers and 22 politicians, including Franco-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt.

"This gesture toward reconciliation is about hostages and their families," Restrepo said.

However, analysts said politics played a part in the government's decision to free the prisoners.

"The government gave what it did under pressure of public opinion and attitude polls," said Fernando Giraldo, a political scientist at Sergio Arboleda University.

The announcement came two days after lawmakers passed legislation that, if signed into law, would allow Uribe to seek re-election. His term ends in August 2006.

The liberation of the rebels revived hopes among relatives of the 1,600 hostages in the hands of the FARC.

"These unilateral gestures open the way to the long-awaited negotiation between the government and the guerrillas," said Fabiola Perdomo, spokeswoman for the families of kidnapped legislators.

She said she hoped the FARC would give "a positive response as a way to restore confidence."

Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of former Green Party presidential candidate Betancourt, held by the FARC since February 23, 2002, hoped her daughter would be home for Christmas, which will also be her daughter's 43rd birthday.

"There is no way to express the ordeal we have been through," she said.

"We have been completely powerless."

At the same time, hostages' relatives begged Uribe not to extradite FARC leader Simon Trinidad to the United States, where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges, for fear of upsetting the talks. Colombia's Supreme Court authorized the extradition on November 24.

For months, the government and the rebels have said each would like a prisoner swap, but could not agree on the details.

The FARC demanded a demilitarized zone in the south of Colombia in which to exchange prisoners, arguing that the rebels needed to protect their negotiators. The government refused.

"The government showed its flexibility in reaching a humanitarian agreement and does not want to appear to favor dialogue with paramilitaries while excluding the rebels," said Alfredo Rangel, director of the Security and Democracy Foundation.

Earlier this year, Uribe authorized talks leading to the demobilization of Colombia's right-wing paramilitary armies by the end of 2005.

The Marxist FARC was founded 40 years ago by Manuel Marulanda and has 17,000 armed members organized into 120 "fronts" across Colombia.