IPS-English COLOMBIA: Chávez Asks Uribe for Patience in Hostage Talks
 
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:15:42 -0800

 
Constanza Vieira

CARACAS, Nov 20   (IPS)  - ”Impatience is not a good thing,” Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez responded to the Colombian government's announcement
of a December deadline for his efforts to broker an agreement for
an exchange of imprisoned guerrillas for hostages held by the rebels.

The Venezuelan leader made his remarks in France, where he met Tuesday
with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Shortly after Chávez arrived in Paris late Monday, the Colombian
government said it was setting a 40-day deadline for reaching a deal
on a prisoner-hostage swap -- an agreement that has not been reached
in the five years since rightwing President Álvaro Uribe took office.

On Monday, the Council of the European Union expressed in Brussels
its support for the efforts to negotiate a humanitarian prisoner-hostage
exchange.

After he reached France, Chávez said he was not carrying any proof
that French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt, seized by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in February 2002 while campaigning
for president, was still alive.

”But I am absolutely certain that Ingrid is alive,” said the Venezuelan leader.

A huge poster of Betancourt, the highest-profile hostage, hangs from
the façade of the town hall in Paris, and she has been declared an
honorary citizen of over 1,000 cities around the world.

Chávez's certainty is based on the word of the world's oldest guerrilla
fighter, FARC commander Manuel Marulanda, who gave orders to collect
proof that all of the hostages held by the FARC are still alive.

Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba, who was appointed by Uribe to facilitate
an agreement, also said in the French capital that a ”surprise” could
be forthcoming, and added that evidence that the hostages are alive
would be handed over ”tomorrow, in two days, or in a week.”

The press in the Venezuelan capital was certain that Chávez did not
go to his meeting with Sarkozy on Tuesday with empty hands.

According to two sources who talked to IPS, Chávez already has solid
evidence that some of the hostages are still alive, possibly including
the three U.S. citizens -- Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith
Stansell -- who were seized by the FARC in 2003 while carrying out
intelligence work as part of Washington's military assistance to Colombia.

In Colombia, where the government staunchly refuses to even recognise
the existence of an armed conflict, both the FARC and independent
experts say the security forces are bombing every area where guerrilla
camps are suspected to be located -- a move that would clearly stand
in the way of collecting and handing over proof of life.

There is no precise figure on how many hostages the FARC is holding.
The longest-held are two soldiers, Libio Martínez and Pablo Moncayo,
who will have been living in captivity in the jungle for 10 years
as of December.

”Between 45 and 50” soldiers and civilian hostages will be swapped
for ”between 400 and 500” jailed insurgents, according to a recent
statement by the FARC.

But when he reached Paris, Chávez wasted no time in diverting attention
from the ”proof of life” question.

He said that in a 50-minute private meeting with his Colombian counterpart
during the 17th Ibero-American Summit earlier this month in Chile,
he and Uribe ”talked about the possibility of a meeting somewhere
between Marulanda and Chávez,” and Uribe said ”I could even go.”

The Uribe administration immediately put out a statement clarifying
that a meeting between the Colombian president and the FARC would
only be possible once the rebels released all of the hostages, and
within the context of formal peace talks. It also announced the year-end
deadline for the current negotiations.

The government also said that Uribe's hypothetical willingness to
eventually meet with Marulanda was a secret, to which Chávez responded
in a press conference in Paris that he had not been asked for discretion
on that point, which at any rate, he said, showed that Uribe was interested
in peace.

The Venezuelan leader gave indications in France that he is not only
seeking a hostage-prisoner swap, but is interested in brokering a
full-fledged peace process in Colombia, said analysts.

Not long ago, on Nov. 6, it was Uribe himself who called for ”patience”
to allow Chávez and Senator Córdoba to facilitate the talks and carry
out their work in a ”prudent, and hopefully effective, manner.”

But the race against time is not only a question of whether or not
Uribe is running out of patience. Another key aspect is how long the
hostages can hold out, living in harsh conditions in the jungle. For
example, Senator Luis Eladio Pérez, who was kidnapped by the guerrillas
in June 2001, has diabetes.

Equally important is that four military operations aimed at wiping
out FARC camps or units have been reported this year.

The first apparently took place in June, when 11 provincial legislators
held hostage by the FARC for five years were killed in the midst of
an armed confrontation between their captors and an unidentified adversary.

Since early August, Córdoba and Chávez have been working hard to
bring about a hostage-prisoner exchange. One of the seven members
of the FARC Secretariat even met with the Venezuelan leader in the
presidential palace in Caracas this month.

In the meantime, even rightwing voices in Colombia have agreed that
Venezuela's leftist leader is ”the last card” in the effort to achieve
a humanitarian exchange of prisoners for hostages.

The hostages' families also fully back the current negotiations.
”If Chávez does not negotiate quickly in Venezuela with the FARC,
I believe the group (of hostages) will not come back whole,” Ángela
de Pérez, Luis Eladio Pérez's wife, told IPS.

”That is because they are just barely surviving; they are exhausted
after so many years” of hardships, she added.

She urged the FARC ”at least to produce a list of names, and proof
of life” for all of the hostages.

And she asked ”the government to facilitate things, for the love
of God, to not torpedo the efforts anymore, because it is very clear
that the government has been throwing up obstacles to and opposing
the release of Colombians in Colombian territory.”

”Other countries, (and other leaders) like President Chávez, have
had to assume the task of solving a problem that is the responsibility
of the Colombian president, but which he has not assumed,” she complained.

De Pérez urged those personalities around the world who are helping
to broker a humanitarian accord ”to support the effort more emphatically,”
because otherwise, ”many of the hostages, due to health problems,
are not going to be reunited with their families.”

She also called on ”the world to help us,” and said ”it seems atrocious
to me that the president will not even recognise the existence of
the war and will not acknowledge the victims of that war.”

Gustavo Moncayo, whose son, army corporal Pablo Moncayo, is one of
the hostages held by FARC, set out Monday on a march from Bogotá to
Caracas to mobilise support for a prisoner-hostage exchange.

From Jun. 17 to Aug. 1, the teacher, who has been dubbed the ”peace
walker”, received shows of support from millions of people along the
1,000-km trek from his hometown in southwestern Colombia to the capital.


*****
+ 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)
+ COLOMBIA:  ‘Peace Walker' Welcomed by Tens of Thousands (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38759)
+ A Nation Torn - More IPS News on Colombia (http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/colombia/index.asp)


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