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 News from Around the Americas | January 2008 
Colombia: Hostage Release "Blasted"
 Constanza Vieira - IPS
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| | Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe gestures while giving a speech to media at Apiay military base in Villavicencio December 30, 2007. A delicate mission to free three hostages held by Colombian guerrillas appeared to collapse on Monday as the government and rebel leaders accused each other of trying to kill the deal. (Reuters/Carlos Duran) |
Caracas - "Uribe, reflect, my brother, let’s work for peace," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez when the release of three hostages by Colombia’s FARC guerrillas was postponed over the New Year’s holidays.
In a chaotic New Year’s Eve press conference at the presidential palace in Caracas, under a starry sky filled with fireworks, the Venezuelan leader appealed to what speaks loudest to his Colombian counterpart, Álvaro Uribe: business.
Chávez listed a number of major economic and integration projects that cannot fully go ahead as long as Colombia remains in the grip of an armed conflict: the Bank of the South, Petrosur (a regional South American oil company), the South American mega-gas pipeline, and Unasur (Union of South American Nations).
"That is why peace is important," he said, addressing Uribe, a large landowner who, with heavy U.S. support, has been waging an all-out offensive for the past five years against the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), a rural guerrilla army that emerged in 1964.
"It was Colombia’s turn to host the Unasur summit this year. It didn't happen," complained Chávez, while talking to reporters about the postponement of the release of Colombian hostages Consuelo González and Clara Rojas and the latter’s young son Emmanuel, born in 2004. His father is a guerrilla fighter.
González, a former congresswoman, has been held by the FARC since 2001. Rojas was seized in February 2002 along with then presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who holds dual Colombian-French citizenship. Rojas was her running-mate at the time.
"Emmanuel, I want to have some ice cream with you," Chávez said recently.
Uribe had approved the Venezuelan leader’s role as a mediator in negotiations for a humanitarian swap of the hostages held by the guerrillas for imprisoned insurgents. Chávez’s help was enlisted in mid-August by opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba, who was designated to broker the negotiations, and by the families of the 45 hostages.
But Chávez and Córdoba’s mediation was abruptly and inexplicably cut off by Uribe in late November, triggering a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, with Venezuela recalling its ambassador for consultations and threatening to freeze economic relations, which are vital to Colombia.
The FARC responded by announcing that they would unilaterally release the three hostages, to compensate Chávez and Córdoba for their efforts. The Uribe administration authorised the use of Colombian airspace for the operation.
However, "Operation Emmanuel", led by Chávez, was postponed on New Year’s Eve by the FARC, which said in a statement that continued military operations by the Colombian government in the area would endanger the lives of the hostages.
Chávez had reserved certain details of the operation for the Colombian government, the Red Cross, and the delegates of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, France and Switzerland, who are acting as international observers.
Under Operation Emmanuel, the Venezuelan government sent aircraft with the Red Cross symbol to the airport in Villavicencio, capital of the central Colombian department (province) of Meta, 90 km south of Bogota.
The team of international observers, including former Argentine president Néstor Kirchner, was also flown in to Villavicencio, where they waited until New Year’s Eve.
The only thing expected of the Colombian government was a suspension of military activity in the area.
In the third phase of Operation Emmanuel, two helicopters were to fly towards an unknown destination in the jungle to pick up the three hostages. The pilots were to receive directions in mid-flight from the FARC.
But "the third phase began to run into difficulties," said Chávez, who added that he had heard from different sources, not only the guerrillas, that Colombian military activity continued in the area - not combat actions, but military pressure, he clarified. No further details have been made available.
The international observers flew home from Villavicencio, but are prepared to return when the conditions are in place to allow the release to go ahead safely. However, Red Cross representatives stayed behind in the town.
When Uribe authorised the use of Colombian airspace by Venezuelan aircraft, he apparently did not agree to a ceasefire in the area in question, but only to the creation of a "humanitarian corridor" for flying the hostages out.
But, said Chávez, "he knows it’s impossible" to create such a corridor, because that would "require two points," and only one will be known ahead of time.
The reason for this is that the FARC will only provide the coordinates for the spot chosen for the hostage handover once the helicopter pilots are in flight, through means that cannot be intercepted electronically, since the Colombian counterinsurgency forces, using cutting-edge technology provided as part of the U.S. military aid to the country, are more than keen on learning the location of the rebel unit escorting the hostages.
Now Chávez has two Emmanuels to choose from to eat an ice cream cone with: the one to be handed over by the FARC, and a boy that Uribe said was discovered a few days ago in an orphanage in Colombia.
In a speech given on Dec. 31 at an air base near Villavicencio, Uribe speculated that the FARC were delaying the release because they were no longer holding Emmanuel. He also announced that DNA tests were being carried out to determine whether the little boy in the orphanage, who shows signs of physical abuse, was Emmanuel.
Chávez said Uribe presented that version "to blast the third phase of the operation."
In theory, Uribe cannot produce the second Emmanuel because Colombian laws protect the identity of minors. DNA taken from Clara Rojas’s family members will be checked against the samples provided by the Colombian government.
IPS found out that voices within the Democratic Party in the United States and in Europe have called for a European commission to carry out independent DNA tests on "Emmanuel II" and the Rojas family.
Besides South American integration and business activities, there is something else at stake here.
Chávez has stated that if he can speak face to face with FARC leader Manuel Marulanda for 20 hours, he can convince him that today it is possible for the left in Latin America to make it to power through elections.
Or, in the words of Senator Córdoba, "we, who have the chance of creating a better world, have to fight in another way: at the polls."
"Uribe believes they can defeat the FARC, that they can wipe them out…but they can’t," said Chávez in Monday’s news briefing. He added that he said the same thing to Iván Márquez, a FARC leader who visited him in November in the presidential palace in Caracas.
"Neither side is going to be able to put an end to the other side's determination to fight," he said.
"This is a struggle that is wearing out and breaking down Colombia, and that is wearing out Venezuela as well," said the president, who will continue to push for the hostages’ release.
But apparently not everyone concerned is interested in seeing a hostage release go through.
Interestingly, just before Uribe called off Chávez’s mediation efforts, and just before he announced the appearance of "Emmanuel II", he received phone calls from the same source: U.S. President George W. Bush. |
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