Colombia's FARC guerrillas last week refused to accept the mediation of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Government in attempts to secure the release of dozens of prisoners held by the insurgents.

The Farc leadership accused both the Colombian bishops and the Government of Rodríguez Zapatero of siding with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who has been pursuing the military defeat of the left-wing guerrillas since he came to power in 2002. "They ruled themselves out by their attitude," Farc spokesman Raúl Reyes told the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina. President Uribe responded angrily, saying that "both the Church and Spain have been respected in Colombia for hundreds of years".

Farc is the ideological ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, who in January secured the release of two female hostages, even though President Uribe had by then told the Venezuelan leader that he no longer regarded him as a suitable mediator. Mr Uribe later suggested that a group of European countries including Spain and the Colombian bishops' conference would make more impartial intermediaries than the Venezuelan president, who has been an outspoken critic of his Colombian counterpart for his pro-US policies and tough line with the Farc. The Spanish Government responded by offering Mr Uribe military assistance.

Mr Chávez, who claims to be leading Venezuela towards "twenty-first-century socialism", has called on the international community to recognise the Farc as belligerents in a civil conflict rather than regarding them as "terrorists" - the way they are described by the US, the EU and the Colombian Government. Mr Chávez has received no support for this position, even from otherwise well disposed governments such as Argentina and Ecuador.