Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has suspended peace talks with the South American nation's largest rebel group after an army general was taken captive.

General Ruben Dario Alzate was surveying a rural energy project along a remote river in western Colombia on Sunday when he and two others were snatched by armed men. A soldier managed to flee in the group's motorboat and reported that the captors were members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

It is the first time in a half-century of fighting that the guerrillas have taken an army general captive.

Calling the apparent abduction "totally unacceptable", Santos said he had ordered government peace negotiators due to travel on Monday to Cuba for the next round of talks to stay until Alzate and the others - an army captain and a government lawyer - are freed.

"FARC is responsible for the life and safety of these three people," Santos said after a meeting with his top military commanders, all of whom are heading to the western capital of Quibdo to oversee rescue efforts.

"Tomorrow, negotiators were to travel to another round of talks in Havana," Santos said early on Monday. "I will tell them not to go and that the talks are suspended until these people are released."

"We will be attentive in the next 24 hours to the evolution of these incidents," Santos said.

The surprise abduction comes as frustration with 2-year-old peace talks is building due to slow progress and the apparent refusal of the guerrillas to wind down attacks in areas where they remain dominant.

AP - Reuters

(China Daily 11/18/2014 page12)