Twelve Colombian lawmakers held hostage by leftist guerrillas sent a message on Friday to President Alvaro Uribe urging him to enter into talks with rebels over their release after five years in captivity.

Families wept as they watched the video released by rebels showing the hostages as they praised their children, greeted wives and called on Uribe and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, to sit down and negotiate their freedom.

It was the first public proof of life since last year from the lawmakers who are among hundreds of soldiers, politicians and others held for as long as nine years in jungle camps. The captives also include three U.S. contract workers captured four years ago.

"President, you are the only one who can make this happen, the whole country will support you," said Juan Carlos Narvaez, one of the lawmakers snatched by the FARC in a 2002 raid on a legislative building in southern Valle del Cauca province.

Uribe, whose own father was killed 20 years ago during a botched rebel kidnapping, is popular for his hard-line security campaign that has driven rebels back into the jungles and dramatically reduced violence from the four-decade conflict.

But the release of hostages, including French-Colombian citizen and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, has become one his most sensitive tasks since the U.S.-educated attorney was re-elected last year.

The FARC, which has been fighting since the 1960s and is Colombia's oldest rebel group, wants the government to demilitarize two rural towns for talks on exchanging 61 key hostages for hundreds of jailed guerrillas.

But the government, which says the FARC is deeply involved in Colombia's huge cocaine trade, wants more guarantees, fearing the rebels will use the area to regroup as they did during similar talks with Uribe's predecessor.

Authorities say two municipalities, Florida and Pradera, are key corridor for arms and cocaine from southern provinces, where illicit coca leaf used to make the drug is cultivated.

"If they want an agreement we are willing to do this even by telephone," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters. "But they insist on the demilitarization of Florida and Pradera, which is the bottle neck in all this."

France, Switzerland and Spain have already presented a proposal for talks but fledgling moves toward negotiations stalled last year after a series of bombing attacks the government blamed on the FARC.

Uribe has received billions of dollars of U.S. military and counter-narcotics aid and he also has negotiated the surrender of illegal paramilitaries who once fought the rebels. But he now faces a scandal linking some of his political allies to the militias, who Washington brand as drug-trafficking terrorists.