BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) --Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Saturday praised the capture of top rebel leader Simon Trinidad as evidence that the country's four-decade leftist insurgency can be defeated on the battlefield.

Trinidad, one of the seven members of the ruling secretariat of the 16,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was
arrested late Friday during a routine document check on a street in the neighboring Ecuadorian capital of Quito, police said. He was swiftly extradited
to Colombia.

"Countrymen: The capture of a FARC leader shows that terrorism will never triumph," Uribe told reporters. He also urged the group's fighters to desert en
masse.

"It would be good if all of you left the guerrillas, which only serves to kidnap, murder and sustain a drug empire that only enriches its leaders," he said.

Trinidad is the only member of the FARC secretariat to have been captured, dealing the group one of its worst blows since it was founded in 1964, officials
and analysts said.

Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe said the United States also played a part in Trinidad's capture, but declined to give details.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bogota also declined to comment. The United States has been training Colombian forces and supplying intelligence
equipment.

"It's the biggest blow the government has dealt the FARC since the organization was born 40 years ago," said Alfredo Rangel, director of the Security and
Democracy Foundation, a Bogota think tank. He said the FARC will likely be looking to strike back.

"I don't discard the possibility that the FARC has a contingency plan for retaliation when something like this happens," he said.

Despite his capture, Trinidad remained defiant. Before boarding a helicopter in Quito that flew him to the border city of Tulcan where he was handed over to
Colombian authorities, he shouted: "Long live Simon Bolivar, Long live the FARC," referring to South America's independence hero.

Trinidad was expected to be taken to a military air base outside Bogota later Saturday.

Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez said he personally informed a jubilant Uribe about the capture and Trinidad's swift extradition to Colombia.

"I think this really helps maintain excellent relations between our two countries and improves regional security," Gutierrez told Colombia's RCN radio.

The 54-year-old rebel, whose real name is Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued to Interpol, the
international police agency, by Colombian prosecutors.

He is wanted on some 30 counts of massacres, bombings and kidnappings.

The Colombian government has multimillion dollar bounties on members of the FARC secretariat, but it was not clear how much money had been offered for
Trinidad.

His capture will be of great comfort for Uribe, who has been facing growing pressure to show concrete successes to justify tax hikes and spending cuts he's
using to pay for the war.

"It is a triumph for the country and human rights," Sen. Jimmy Chamorro, an Uribe ally, told local radio.

Trinidad's arrest also comes after the commander of the Colombian army, Gen. Martin Orlando Carreno, made it his New Year's resolution to capture or kill at
least one of the seven secretariat members within a year, or resign.

Officials believe that Trinidad is very ill and traveled to Ecuador two months ago to seek medical treatment.

Trinidad is an oddity amid the mostly peasant ranks of the FARC. He is the son of a wealthy cattle rancher who studied economics and went on to be a banker
before becoming disgusted with the establishment.

He once said it was the growing gap between the rich and poor in Colombia that drove him to take up arms in the late 1980s, before becoming one of the
FARC's most visible faces and ideologues.

Earlier this month, the FARC reported that another member of the secretariat, Efrain Guzman, died of natural causes at the age of 68. Guzman, who was
replaced by Ivan Rios, was one of the FARC's founding fathers but was the least well-known of the top commanders.

The FARC and a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, have been battling to topple the government and establish a Marxist state in Colombia for
39 years.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.