BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s FARC rebels said yesterday they were waiting for the armed forces to provide security guarantees for the release of two hostages whom guerrilla commanders promised to hand over nearly a year ago.

The release of Pablo Emilio Moncayo, held for more than 12 years, and Josue Daniel Calvo has become mired in politics as President Alvaro Uribe and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC wrangle over conditions for the handover.

The government says it has provided the safeguards for the guerrillas to free the two men to a leftist Colombian senator, the Red Cross and observers from Brazil. Uribe accuses the rebels of using the hostages to score political points.

“The government should end its disinformation campaign and make public the protocols to swiftly start the liberation,” the guerrilla group said in a statement published on the Anncol website (www.anncol.eu), which often carries FARC communiques.

FARC first said it would release the men in April 2009.

Battered to its weakest in decades by Uribe’s security drive, the FARC has unilaterally released hostages over the last two years to gain political leverage even as it continues fighting with hit-and-run tactics in rural areas.

Colombians go to the polls on Sunday for legislative elections and again in May for a presidential vote to decide who succeeds Uribe after two terms highlighted by his hardline, US-backed war on rebels and cocaine traffickers.

Latin America’s oldest rebel insurgency, the FARC is still holding 24 military captives in hidden, jungle camps. It says it wants to exchange hostages for jailed guerrilla fighters.

Once a powerful peasant army, the FARC is deeply engaged in cocaine trafficking and has been driven back into remote mountains and jungles by the Colombian army which has benefited from billions of dollars in US aid.