Colombia ? A former Cabinet minister said Friday he escaped from six years in rebel captivity by fleeing through the jungle after troops attacked the guerrillas who held him.

“When the gunfight began, I told myself either I go now or they kill me,” former Development Minister Fernando Araujo told RCN television before being reunited with his family. “It was a decision of life and death.”

Araujo said he walked five days through mountainous jungle after escaping Sunday from a guerrilla camp as army and marine troops battled members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. He was found by troops in the hamlet of San Agustin, 350 miles north of Bogota.

Araujo said he was in good health, but suffering from hiccups and exhaustion because he had not eaten in five days.

Araujo was kidnapped Dec. 5, 2000, while exercising in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena.