TIMELINE: Hostage-taking in Colombia

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged the international community to stop labeling Colombian guerrillas as terrorists on Friday, a day after rebels freed two high-profile women hostages.

Here is a chronology of hostage-taking events in Colombia in recent years.

Sept 4, 1997 - Marxist rebels storm into one of Colombia's larger hydroelectric power stations and take at least 23 hostages.

March 26, 1998 - Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, hold more than 30 civilian hostages, including four U.S. citizens and an Italian, after seizing them on a highway outside Bogota, authorities say.

April 25 - Marxist rebels free the last two of the four U.S. bird-watchers taken hostage.

Jan 9, 1999 - Marxist rebels free two foreign hostages, a German and a Canadian, held hostage in separate parts of the country, authorities say.

Feb 9, 2000 - Army troops free hundreds of people held by leftist rebels blockading a major highway, after a four-day siege that is believed to be Colombia's biggest-ever hostage seizure.

Oct 25 - One of the 24 people held more than a month in a mass kidnapping by Colombian guerrillas dies, prompting the government and rebels to step up talks about freeing the others, Colombia's peace commissioner says.

Jan 10, 2001 - Helicopter-borne Colombian troops rescue 56 hostages from leftist guerrillas but the rebel group strikes back, kidnapping 13 other people, including five policemen, in another area, police and army officials say.