Bogota, Colombia ? President Alvaro Uribe was booed and heckled Thursday in a most unusual public debate with a teacher who walked halfway across Colombia to plead for a prisoner exchange with leftist rebels.

At one point during the extraordinary, impromptu appearance with his Cabinet members and some of his antagonists, Uribe denied being a front man for drug traffickers and far-right paramilitaries. Uribe even invited a young female heckler on stage and debated her, too, as about 3,000 people gathered around them in Bogota’s central square.

The unprecedented political theater, broadcast live for more than two hours across the nation, was a reminder of how deeply divided Colombia remains on how to obtain freedom for the hostages held by leftist rebels.

It followed a 30-minute meeting Uribe had with teacher Gustavo Moncayo, whose soldier son Pablo Emilio was captured a decade ago in a raid by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Moncayo and other captives’ families want Uribe to exchange hundreds of imprisoned rebels for more than 700 guerrilla-held captives. The rebels, however, are demanding that the military first temporarily quit a New York City-sized area of southwest Colombia, something Uribe once again rejected Thursday.

Uribe did say that if the FARC frees all its hostages, the government would demilitarize a zone for 90 days to begin peace talks.

But that offer is almost certain to be rejected by the guerrillas.

Moncayo’s 600-mile trek has received blanket media coverage in Colombia.