IPS-English COLOMBIA: Chávez-FARC Meeting Moves Hostage Talks Forward
 
Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:16:34 -0800

 
Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Nov 8   (IPS)  - The start of direct talks between Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez and an envoy of the leader of Colombia's FARC
guerrillas took the Colombian government by surprise.

”This was the first meeting. There will be others,” said Chávez,
who explained Wednesday that he met for ”several hours” in an unspecified
place with an unnamed envoy of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia) leader Manuel Marulanda.

Chávez is trying to broker an agreement between the rightwing Colombian
government of President Álvaro Uribe and the FARC for an exchange
of hostages for imprisoned rebels.

The hostages held by the guerrillas include former presidential candidate
Ingrid Betancourt, who holds dual French-Colombian citizenship, soldiers
captured in combat, and three U.S. citizens working for a military
contractor hired by the U.S. Department of Defence.

”For the moment, the Colombian government has received no information
from the Venezuelan government, neither before nor after the meeting,”
Colombia's peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, said in Bogota
in a brief statement Wednesday evening.

On Tuesday, Uribe had expressed ”hope” with regard to prospects for
progress towards an eventual hostage-prisoner swap.

Referring to the ”generous” offer by Chávez and Colombian opposition
Senator Piedad Córdoba to facilitate the talks, he called for patience
to allow them to carry out their work in a ”prudent, and hopefully
effective, manner.”

Uribe said Wednesday that he had planned to meet with Chávez during
the Ibero-American summit being hosted Thursday through Saturday by
Chile, but added that ”we have been told that President Chávez will
not be able to attend.”

One of Senator Córdoba's aides told IPS Tuesday that for security
reasons, the meeting between Chávez and the FARC representative would
be totally secret, but that a public communiqué, and perhaps a photo,
would be released afterwards.

Uribe appointed Córdoba in August to help facilitate a prisoner-hostage
exchange, and agreed with her proposal to enlist the support of the
leftwing Chávez, who is admired and respected by the FARC.

However, the Colombian president refused to provide Marulanda's envoys
with guarantees that the Interpol would not ask the Venezuelan police
to arrest them when they were meeting with Chávez.

In fact, Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos ordered the
army to try to capture the FARC delegates as they crossed the border
into Venezuela.

The mission of the FARC envoys is to prepare the ground for a meeting
between Marulanda and Chávez, considered crucial to any future agreement.

Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo said Monday that ”we hope”
Chávez's efforts will enable ”a direct representative of President
Uribe, the peace commissioner, to meet with a FARC representative
to discuss the conditions necessary for the release of all of the
hostages.”

The FARC radio station Cadena Radial Bolivariana Voz de la Resistencia,
as quoted by the alternative Colombian news agency Agencia Bolivariana
de Prensa (ABP), reported Monday that guerrilla leader Rodrigo Granda
was instructed by the FARC to ”resume his efforts in the search for
a humanitarian accord” for a prisoner-hostage swap.

Granda, who was seized by the police in Caracas in December 2004
in an incident that created tension between Venezuela and Colombia,
was released from prison on Uribe's orders last June, under pressure
from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The guerrilla leader, who is known as the FARC's ”foreign minister”,
announced that his role would be ”to contribute to bringing about
discreet, smooth-flowing and reliable communications between the mediators
and the FARC.” 

The rebel leader said the proof that the hostages are still alive,
which is demanded by the French government as well as a group of U.S.
legislators, will only be handed over if the hostages' safety can
be protected in the process.

Marulanda ”has given the order for the president of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, to receive proof of life for the
hostages if and only if -- and this is very important -- the hostages'
safety is not compromised,” said Granda.

Betancourt's mother, Yolanda Pulecio, pointed out that the two groups
of hostages killed in the recent past had maintained relatively constant
communication with their families through letters and videos, and
that she therefore preferred not to be sent such proof of life for
her daughter. 

”As a mother, I can feel that Ingrid is alive,” she said.

Of the group of hostages held by the FARC with the aim of trading
them for imprisoned rebels, 45 survive, according to Granda. The longest-held
are two soldiers, who will have been living in captivity in the jungle
for 10 years as of December.

And of the 22 hostages who have died, 21 were killed in armed confrontations.
The FARC insurgents guarding the hostages have standing orders to
kill them if the security forces launch an attack or rescue attempt.

The first hostages who died -- a provincial governor, a former defence
minister, and eight members of the military -- were killed by the
FARC during a May 2003 rescue attempt by the army. Three hostages
were successfully rescued and purportedly rejoined the armed forces.

The second group, made up of 11 provincial lawmakers, died in June
this year in the midst of an apparent attack on the guerrillas who
were holding them, although the alleged military operation was not
acknowledged by the government.

In addition, the FARC reported in early 2006 that a police officer
being held hostage had died of illness. The rebels say they have not
handed his remains over to his family because the government has kept
them from doing so, by means of military pressure.

This year, two hostages managed to escape. Former economic development
minister Fernando Araújo fled his captors when they were distracted
as Colombian military helicopters fired on the rebel camp where he
was being held. He was immediately named foreign minister by Uribe.
And police officer Frank Pinchao wandered through the jungle for 17
days after slipping away from the insurgents.

When Chávez joined the efforts to broker an agreement in late August,
the FARC announced that it was seeking the release of 400 imprisoned
insurgents in exchange for the 45 hostages.

In an article Wednesday, the ABP agency summed up the ”principal
stances and considerations” of the FARC with regard to a hostage-prisoner
swap.

For example, the FARC's insistence that the government withdraw all
security forces from a designated safe haven for 30 days -- a condition
that Uribe has consistently rejected -- is due to the need for ”a
big enough area to guarantee the safety of the FARC negotiators and
the prisoners,” says the ABP article.

But given that Uribe has offered the FARC no guarantees for their
safety, the rebel group plans to ”rely on its own troops to provide
security” during the eventual swap, the agency adds.

Another position from which Uribe has refused to back down is his
demand that once the FARC guerrillas are released, they must not take
up arms again, and must demobilise locally or go into exile.

The insurgent group rejects that requirement, arguing that it sets
no conditions on the future activities of the hostages it releases,
and that the government has no right to banish the FARC prisoners.

Another ”serious obstacle” to negotiating an agreement, says the
ABP, was the extradition of Simón Trinidad and Sonia, two guerrillas
who are currently in prison in the United States, where they were
recently visited by Senator Córdoba.


*****
+ COLOMBIA:  Pawns of War - The Hostage Crisis (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39902)
+ COLOMBIA: FARC Hostages Died in Military-Rebel Shootout (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38966)
+ A Nation Torn: More IPS News on Colombia (http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/colombia/index.asp)


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