The rescue alone could reverberate across the region. Hugo Chávez, the leftist leader of Venezuela who negotiated previous releases of hostages held by the FARC but failed to free Betancourt or three American contractors also rescued on Wednesday, has lost the regional spotlight to Colombia’s president, Álvaro Uribe, his top rival and a staunch ally of the Bush administration.

But for the FARC, the game has changed. The gritty leftist insurgency, which has survived for decades in the jungles of this Andean country and provided military cover to the world’s most productive coca growers, fell prey to an elaborate ruse that Colombia’s defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, likened to a Hollywood script.

Betancourt, who was reunited on Thursday with her family, also said the raid seemed almost too fantastic to be true. It became real only when she saw Cesar, her captor, become a captive.

“Suddenly, I saw the commander who, during four years, had been at the head of our team, who so many times was so cruel and humiliated me,” she said. “And I saw him on the floor, naked with bound eyes.”

No other rebel movement is as well known in South America as the FARC, nor as widely reviled.

“The FARC and the paramilitaries in the mid-90s both had shots in the arm from the drug business,” said Bruce M Bagley, chairman of the International Studies Department at the University of Miami.

A turning point came in 2000 when Congress and President Bill Clinton agreed to send Colombia more than $1 billion to emergency aid to battle drug traffickers and their allies. President Andres Pastrana later broke off negotiations with the FARC, deciding instead to fight.

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