IPS-English COLOMBIA: Pawns of War - The Hostage Crisis Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:55:30 -0800 Analysis by Ana Carrigan LONDON, Nov 2 (IPS) - ”Mr. President, we who are going to die send you our greetings.” The Sept. 26, 2006 message, addressed to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, came from a hostage held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), along with eleven other provincial legislators, since April 2002. As of September 2006, the lawmakers had been held in a guerrilla camp in the Amazon jungle for four and a half years, waiting, with diminishing hopes, for the government and the FARC to begin negotiating a hostage-prisoner swap. Nine months later, 11 of the 12 legislators were dead -- among them the young man who had predicted their fate. They died in circumstances that remain murky. But one thing is clear: unable to end over four decades of civil war, Colombians are increasingly turning for help, not to the United States, but to Europe and the rest of Latin America, a dynamic that has been fuelled since August by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's attempts to broker a solution to the hostage crisis. Occasionally, the outside world hears from the hostages via videos released by the FARC to prove that they are still alive. Since Uribe rejected negotiations, every video carries urgent pleas not to try to rescue them by force. Recently, a police officer held hostage sent word that ”a military rescue is the equivalent of a death sentence.” Among the hostages held by the FARC (a rural insurgent group that rose up in arms in 1964) are former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and her running-mate Clara Rojas -- who now has a little boy, the product of a relationship with a guerrilla fighter -- as well as eight other politicians. The hostages also include 14 army officers and non-commissioned officers, 20 policemen, and three U.S. military contractors. The rebels want to exchange the hostages for some 400 imprisoned guerrillas, as well as two who were extradited to the United States, alias ”Sonia” and ”Simón Trinidad”. Like the endless armed conflict, the fate of the hostages is mired in a legacy of mutual hatred. In 1983, the FARC killed Uribe's father in a botched kidnapping attempt. Over the past year, Supreme Court investigations and trials of so-called ”para-politicians” have uncovered secret ties between allies of Uribe, including members of his family, and paramilitaries guilty of committing atrocities against the rural civilian population accused of supporting the insurgents. The FARC has refused to talk to the government until it withdraws the security forces from a given area, in order to create a demilitarised zone. Uribe, meanwhile, refuses to withdraw troops from ”one single millimetre” of Colombian territory. In spite of discreet efforts by the governments of France, Spain and Switzerland to facilitate a hostage-prisoner exchange, the war has repeatedly stymied their hard work. In the meantime, the rightwing Uribe denies that Colombia is in the grip of a civil war, and insists that there is merely ”a terrorist threat to a democratic state” from a group of ”bandits.” To fight these ”bandits” -- the leftwing rebels -- his government receives around 630 million dollars in military aid a year from the United States, hires mercenaries, and finances British, American, French and Israeli experts to train mobile commandos who infiltrate FARC territory, identify targets, and call up air strikes on anything that moves. The Colombian rainforest is a war zone where the hostages are trapped, like ducks in a shooting gallery. The 11 hostages were killed somewhere inside the estimated 40 percent of the national territory controlled by the FARC (basically rural, sparsely populated areas) The rebel group announced the deaths on the Internet on Jun. 28, saying they had been killed in crossfire on Jun.18, when ”an as-yet unidentified military group” attacked the camp where they were being held. In a televised address, Uribe accused the FARC of killing the hostages in cold-blooded, premeditated murder. He said the army could not have attacked the camp since they did not know where the hostages were located, and Defence Ministry dispatches claimed that no operations were carried out in that part of FARC territory on Jun. 18. When the news reached Geneva on Jun. 28, the French, Swiss and Spanish delegates were busy assessing the results of a 24-hour Jun. 16 meeting with the FARC. Sources in the Colombian capital reported that the visit by the mediators, their seventh to the jungle this year, had made substantial progress. An agenda for talks towards a prisoner-hostage swap was agreed, and the FARC had started to follow through on a schedule of steps aimed at building a climate of mutual trust and confidence. When the delegates learned the hostages were dead, they contacted the FARC in the jungle to demand an explanation, according to reports from sources in Paris. But the FARC leadership knew nothing about it; they could not understand how the camp's security had been breached, and they had no notion as to where, when, how or why the hostages had been killed. They reportedly kept repeating over and over: ”This is a catastrophe! A total catastrophe!” They immediately grasped the implications and understood that the tragedy could destroy any possibility of an eventual prisoner-hostage exchange. This year saw increased international backing for a swap. Seven Democratic lawmakers from the U.S. came out in support of a proposal set forth in December 2005 by France, Spain and Switzerland for a ”meeting zone” where negotiations to secure the hostages' release could take place with security provided by the three European countries and the International Red Cross. Then on May 17, Uribe spoke to his generals, urging them to launch rescue missions and release Betancourt and the other hostages by force. This prompted action by newly inaugurated President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for whom the liberation of Betancourt, who holds dual Colombian and French citizenship, is ”a matter of utmost priority.” Incensed by Uribe's speech, Sarkozy called Bogotá. Uribe rescinded his orders for a military rescue, and also released Rodrigo Granda, Colombia's highest-ranking FARC prisoner. By August, there was still no information as to how the hostages had been killed. But there were suspicions that the ”unidentified” military group which the FARC said attacked the camp had done so with the knowledge of the army. Clues about a military operation that wiped out a guerrilla camp began to circulate on the Internet, and a plausible reconstruction of the event was published by IPS journalist Constanza Vieira. According to Vieira's account, several members of the FARC unit guarding the hostages had deserted on the eve of the killings. Suspicions of infiltration spurred the removal of the hostages by motorboat at dawn. Allegedly, they died on the river when their boat was ambushed by a Colombian military commando backed up by army helicopters. In August, under heavy pressure to resume contacts with the FARC, Uribe appointed opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba, who had enlisted the support of President Chávez, as facilitator. When the Venezuelan and Colombian presidents met in Bogotá, they agreed that Chávez would help broker a prisoner-hostage exchange. The Chávez-Córdoba team moved swiftly to break the deadlock. In response to the Venezuelan leader's offer of a neutral territory for talks, FARC leaders agreed to travel to Caracas, and even to hold negotiations in any neutral area. That means their demand for a demilitarised zone in Colombia would apply only to the actual exchange of hostages for prisoners -- a major concession. International support for Chávez's efforts grew. Most importantly, the George W. Bush administration sent out clear signals that it was waiting for a concrete proposal from the FARC to begin negotiating the release of the three U.S. military contractors. Sarkozy remains strongly engaged. Spain, Switzerland, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and the ruling coalition in Uruguay have also offered support. Senator Córdoba is currently in Washington. So why the delay? What is holding up the promised meeting between Chávez and the FARC? A meeting with the FARC scheduled for Oct. 8, to which U.S. legislators, Venezuelan officials, and relatives of the hostages were also invited, was postponed when Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos refused to provide guarantees that the FARC delegates would not be arrested when they tried to cross the border into Venezuela. What is Uribe up to? Does he really want to negotiate the release of the hostages? Some in Caracas say he is himself a hostage to hard-line sectors of the Colombian right who are opposed to peace and intend to block any agreement for a prisoner-hostage swap. Whatever the answers, several things are clear: the hostage crisis has taken on an international dimension and Uribe has lost control of Chávez's initiative. The ball is now in the FARC's court. Offered this opportunity by Chávez to escape the ”terrorist” label, will they use it wisely? Do they recognise the urgency of the situation? Do they see that their own future is now irrevocably linked to that of the hostages? And when they meet with Chávez, will they bring proof that the remaining hostages are still alive? Will they reciprocate the release of Granda, and free one or two hostages? Will they put forth concrete proposals? The questions abound, but so far the answers are slow to come. ***** + COLOMBIA: FARC Hostages Died in Military-Rebel Shootout (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38966) + COLOMBIA: ‘Peace Walker' Welcomed by Tens of Thousands (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38759) + Colombia: A Nation Torn - More IPS News (http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/colombia/index.asp) (END/IPS/LA IP HD/AN/SW/07) = 11022020 ORP012 NNNN