BOGOTA — Colombia, which has the dubious honor of being considered the kidnapping capital of the world, beat its own record in 2000 when the tally rose 7 percent, police said in a report issued Saturday.
There were 3,162 people were kidnapped in this Andean nation during the year, police said, up from 2,959 reported in 1999. Police said that nearly 60 percent of the kidnappings were the work of leftist rebels.
Kidnapping is big business for the guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries who are locked in Latin America's longest-running conflict and use ransom and cash from the drug trade to finance their uprising, authorities say.
It is not clear how much money the combatants earn from ransoms and extortion, but the report said police anti-kidnapping operations in 2000 had foiled the payment of some $15 million.
Ransoms range from $100 to millions of dollars.
The upward trend was confirmed in a report this week by Pais Libre, an independent group that monitors kidnappings, which said there had been 3,029 kidnappings in the first 11 months of 2000, up from 2,945 it recorded for 1999.
Guerrillas responsible for most kidnappings
The police said the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second biggest rebel force with some 5,000 fighters, were the biggest kidnappers, carrying out 867 during the year.
Latin America's biggest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), carried out 734 kidnappings and two tiny leftist forces, the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) and the Revolutionary People's Army (EPN) carried out 184 and 49 respectively.
Colombian rebels have been fighting the government for more than three decades, a war that has claimed 35,000 lives in the past decade.
The police said guerrilla kidnappings made up 58 percent of the total. Eleven percent—333—were carried out by common criminals and eight percent—259 cases—by far-right paramilitaries.
Those responsible for the remaining 23 percent of cases had still to be determined, the police said.
The ELN freed 42 policemen and soldiers it had been holding hostage for around two years just before Christmas in progress towards full-scale peace talks with the government.
The FARC is holding some 450 police and soldiers which it has proposed swapping for some 350 jailed rebels, but the government has refused and is negotiating instead the "humanitarian exchange" of a group of sick prisoners that the FARC said on Friday it expected to happen in early January.
It would be the first prisoner exchange in Colombia's conflict, which has claimed at least 35,000 civilian lives and displaced more than two million people since 1990 alone.
Police said they rescued 210 kidnap victims during the year, captured 549 kidnappers and killed 25 alleged kidnappers.