IPS-English COLOMBIA: Interference and Belligerence Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:54:05 -0800 Constanza Vieira BOGOTA, Jan 18 (IPS) - The Colombian government ”is not committed to peace, but obsessed with war,” the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a communiqué Thursday. The message rubs salt in the wounds opened by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's harsh criticisms of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Wednesday. Chávez, a retired lieutenant colonel, said that the nearly half-century-old internal conflict in Colombia cannot be solved by military means. After his statements Wednesday, Bogotá accused him of interfering in ”internal matters.” But this interference by Venezuela appears to be only the latest of many. The deputy foreign minister and Venezuela's ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), Jorge Valero, remarked that if anything threatened Colombian sovereignty, it was the blatant military presence of the U.S. in the country's internal conflict. On Jun. 17, 2004, the commander at that time of the U.S. Armed Forces Southern Command, James T. Hill, told the Ecuadorean newspaper Hoy about the core goals of Plan Colombia, begun in 2000 with funding from Washington to combat drug trafficking and the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). We'll break their backbone, militarily and economically, and we'll increase govern-ability, a strategy designed with the view that the Colombian conflict ”will not have a military solution, but a political one,” Hill said. Washington's approach is to keep all options open to secure the release of three U.S. Defence Department contractors working for Plan Colombia -- Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell -- who were captured by the FARC in Feb. 2003. The FARC are seeking to exchange a group of more than 40 civilian hostages and prisoners of war for several hundred FARC guerrillas imprisoned in Colombian jails. Washington's ace card is that two FARC guerrillas are being held in the U.S. after they were extradited by Uribe in response to the capture of the three U.S. hostages. Any humanitarian exchange must include these two, the guerrillas say, which means that the decision to free guerrillas is no longer entirely up to Colombia. One of the guerrillas whose nom de guerre is ”Sonia” is serving a 16-and-a- half year sentence in a Texan prison, while the other, ”Simón Trinidad”, will be sentenced at the end of this month. With a year to go before U.S. President George W. Bush steps down, the intricacy of U.S. involvement appears to be more complex than simple confrontation. Shortly before next week's visit to Colombia by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. ambassador to this country, William Brownfield, made a clear statement about political mediation. We look favourably on the participation of any leader, official, politician, or VIP from any country in the world in an effort to secure the prompt and safe release of the many Colombian hostages held by the FARC and the ELN (National Liberation Army -- a smaller guerrilla group), he said, without mentioning Chávez or the U.S. captives. At the same time Sean McCormack, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, ruled out the Venezuelan president's call for the FARC to be struck off the list of foreign terrorist organisations. They have been so designated since the inception of the list in 1997, during the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton (1993-2001). Jim McGovern, a member of the lower house of the U.S. Congress, left Colombia on Monday after a four-day visit. The congressman had been commissioned by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and former House Minority Leader, to pursue a humanitarian agreement in order to end the tragedy of the hostages and prisoners of war held by the FARC. McGovern, who is deputy chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules, travelled to Bogotá with two other democratic party congressmen -- George Miller and Bill Delahunt -- to address the issues of human rights violations in Colombia and the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries which is still pending approval in the U.S. congress. The three legislators belong to the congressional sub-committee that is investigating alleged financing of ultra-rightwing paramilitary groups by U.S. corporations. The paramilitaries -- armed drug traffickers who worked with government security forces and committed atrocious massacres -- were formally dissolved just over a year ago. During the frenetic activity to broker a humanitarian exchange between Aug. and Nov. 2007 by Chávez and Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba, McGovern and the other U.S. lawmakers indicated their willingness to meet officially with a FARC emissary, if the guerrillas provided proof of life for the three contractors. The proof was intercepted by the Colombian government in Bogotá on Nov. 29, and the women couriers were arrested and face possible extradition to the U.S. by Uribe, which would further complicate a solution to the hostage tragedy, according to observers. However, McGovern kept his word and ”a message has already been sent” to the guerrillas to arrange a meeting, Ángela de Pérez, the wife of former Colombian congressman Luis Eladio Pérez who is a hostage of the FARC, told IPS. While he was in Colombia, McGovern met government representatives, members of the diplomatic corps, the hostages' families, facilitators who have made contact with the FARC or are attempting to do so, analysts, and members of non-governmental organisations. According to U.S. expert Adam Isaacson of the non-governmental Centre for International Policy, who accompanied McGovern, ”the U.S. Congress members' offer to meet with the FARC was generally well received.” We are interested in results, and if any organisation or person can help us to reunite the hostages with their loved ones, we positively welcome them, McGovern said. The FARC ”must first indicate that they want to meet” in order for the meeting to go ahead. ”I would be willing to meet with the FARC only if I thought it would achieve something positive and tangible,” he added. ”We are not interested in publicity nor in photographs. We want a humanitarian agreement,” McGovern said. At a meeting with members of the press, the U.S. lawmakers acknowledged the role played by Chávez in the freeing of Colombian politicians Clara Rojas and Consuelo González on Jan. 10. The women were part of the group of high-profile hostages that the FARC is holding for their exchange value. The guerrillas have another 700 hostages whom they are holding for ransom. But the U.S. visitors did reject the Venezuelan president's proposal to accord the status of ”belligerents” to the guerrillas. ”When the FARC stop behaving like terrorists, then the designation can be changed.” During her pursuit of a humanitarian agreement, Córdoba made three visits to the U.S., and was able to have official interviews with ”Sonia” and ”Simón Trinidad” with permission from the State Department and Justice Department. In her report to the Colombian parliament after Uribe broke off Chávez's participation in their joint mission, Córdoba said she had obtained ”support and acceptance” from the U.S. for a peace process in Colombia. She also said that she had obtained U.S. support for Chávez's mediation, and recognition of ”the possibility of negotiating the sentences” of both guerrillas held in the U.S. ”if there was progress towards the liberation of the U.S. contractors” in the hands of the FARC. On Thursday, a Colombian radio station announced that the guerrillas might free more hostages, including one of the three contractors. ***** + COLOMBIA: Hostages' Release, Seen from the Other Side (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40756) + COLOMBIA: Hostages Handed Over by Rebels (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40746) + COLOMBIA: Jail the Messenger (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40392) + More IPS News Coverage on Colombia - A Nation Torn (http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/colombia/index.asp) (END/IPS/LA/HD/IP/CS/BO/IB/TRASP-VD/MJS/CV/08) = 01190154 ORP007 NNNN