SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia (AP) --A candidate in Colombia's
upcoming presidential elections was abducted by leftist guerrillas as she was traveling
to a former rebel-controlled town, her campaign spokeswoman said Sunday.

Former Sen. Ingrid Betancourt and campaign manager Clara Rojas were kidnapped
Saturday by rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- known by
its Spanish acronym FARC -- spokeswoman Diana Rodriguez told The Associated
Press.

Rodriguez said the rebels released three men who had accompanied Betancourt and
her aide. The three were at an army base in the city of Florencia, Rodriguez said.
She said the three men, including a French photographer and a Colombian
cameraman, were unharmed. Their names were not immediately known.

Betancourt, 40, had left Florencia on Saturday afternoon by car for the former rebel
town of San Vicente del Caguan, which army troops captured earlier in the day.

Colombia's government said it had warned Betancourt not to make the trip because it
was too dangerous. Officials had turned down requests by Betancourt for ground
and air transportation to San Vicente, about 170 miles (250 kilometers) south of
Bogota.

Interior Minister Armando Estrada stressed that the government was searching for
Betancourt and doing what it could to establish security in the war zone.

"It is good that politicians are doing what they can to draw support for their
campaigns and their causes ... but it was not necessary to make that trip in those
conditions," Estrada said, asking other candidates to refrain from visiting the area for
the moment.

Two other presidential candidates, Noemi Sanin and Horacio Serpa, heeded the
military's warning and postponed visits to San Vicente, the government said.

"I join all Colombians in hoping for her freedom," Sanin said in an interview Sunday
with RCN radio. "Our situation is difficult. ... Terrorism and threats to security [in
Colombia] are endless."

Betancourt was last seen at 3 p.m. Saturday at an army checkpoint on the road. An
army commander there urged her party not to continue, the government said.

Betancourt had planned to meet with San Vicente Mayor Nestor Leon Ramirez, a
member of her political party. She had told reporters she was determined to stage a
rally in San Vicente for "respect for human rights."

Betancourt's husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, said his wife felt she needed to be
with the people of San Vicente "during the good and the bad."

San Vicente was the capital of a swath of southern Colombia controlled by the
FARC until Thursday. President Andres Pastrana had ceded the zone to the leftist
rebels in 1998 in hopes of brokering an end to Colombia's 38-year war.

Citing repeated FARC attacks on military and civilian targets, Pastrana ordered the
military to reoccupy the area, and troops entered San Vicente at dawn Saturday.

Betancourt is a severe critic of the rebels but had received little support in
presidential polls.

She was one of four presidential candidates who traveled into guerrilla territory in
February to cajole rebel and government peace negotiators to make progress.

"What were you thinking when you decided to join the guerrillas?" she asked rebel
leaders during a nationally televised forum in the zone in February. "Did you think
the guerrillas would be involved in cocaine?"

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.