BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- One guard was slain, two were injured and
                 39 inmates escaped a ja il in southwestern Colombia when the country's
                 biggest leftist rebel group, the FARC, blew a hole in the wall with grenades,
                 prison officials said on Tuesday.

                 The attack on the jail in Ibague, some 70 miles (110 km) south of the capital
                 Bogota, came late on Monday as President Andres Pastrana was announcing the
                 resumption of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
                 known by their Spanish initials as FARC, after a day of drama in which he was just
                 hours away from ordering a military offensive.

                 "FARC rebels attacked the prison both from the outside and the inside. Thirty-nine
                 inmates fled, a guard was killed and two other guards were injured," said a
                 spokesman for the National Penitentiary Institute.

                 The dead guard was shot twice in the head and his colleagues suffered light
                 injuries. None of the inmates has yet been recaptured. It was the biggest jailbreak
                 since last June when 98 prisoners escaped from a top-security Bogota jail.

                 Pastrana has given the FARC until January 20 to make concrete progress toward a
                 cease-fire or give up the Switzerland-sized enclave in southern Colombia he ceded
                 to them three years ago as an incentive to peace talks.

                    Copyright 2002 Reuters.
 

Guard slain, inmates flee in Colombia jailbreak

                 January 15, 2002 Posted: 2:08 PM EST (1908 GMT)

CNN
 
 
 
 
 

                 BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- One guard was slain, two were injured and
                 39 inmates escaped a ja il in southwestern Colombia when the country's
                 biggest leftist rebel group, the FARC, blew a hole in the wall with grenades,
                 prison officials said on Tuesday.

                 The attack on the jail in Ibague, some 70 miles (110 km) south of the capital
                 Bogota, came late on Monday as President Andres Pastrana was announcing the
                 resumption of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
                 known by their Spanish initials as FARC, after a day of drama in which he was just
                 hours away from ordering a military offensive.

                 "FARC rebels attacked the prison both from the outside and the inside. Thirty-nine
                 inmates fled, a guard was killed and two other guards were injured," said a
                 spokesman for the National Penitentiary Institute.

                 The dead guard was shot twice in the head and his colleagues suffered light
                 injuries. None of the inmates has yet been recaptured. It was the biggest jailbreak
                 since last June when 98 prisoners escaped from a top-security Bogota jail.

                 Pastrana has given the FARC until January 20 to make concrete progress toward a
                 cease-fire or give up the Switzerland-sized enclave in southern Colombia he ceded
                 to them three years ago as an incentive to peace talks.

                    Copyright 2002 Reuters.