[NYTr] Colombia/Venez: FARC Hostage Release Expected

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The Colombian Government is now claiming to be in support of the
release. But a senator fears the Colmbian military could thwart the
whole deal. Meanwhile, the families wait. - NY Transfer]


Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

Colombia Awaiting FARC Xmas Present

Bogota, Dec 24 (Prensa Latina) Colombians began their week of waiting
Monday, for the Christmas release of three people promised to be
released to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by the Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).

FARC announced last week they will hand over Clara Rojas, ex
presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt's running mate who was
captured with her in 2002, her son Enmanuel and Representative Consuelo
Gonzalez, detained since 2003, to President Chavez

Caracas reports that, after his return from his visit to Cuba, the
Venezuelan president plans to take charge of making the necessary
arrangements to receive the released prisoners, which could happen
before year end.

While Colombian media speculate on where the exchange will take place,
authorities have made few announcements, insisting that FARC's
humanitarian gesture be looked upon favorably.

The debate continues over the Colombian government's action on November
21 to abruptly halt, what many Colombians perceive as important
progress by President Chavez and Senator Cordova, mediation for
exchange of prisoners, causing a serious crisis with Venezuela.

hr ccs abo rc PL-16

                                ***

Xinhua - Dec 24, 2007
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/24/content_7302398.htm

Colombian gov't says backs rebel hostage release

    BOGOTA, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Colombia's government said on Sunday
that it was not placing obstacles in the way of the planned release of
three high-profile hostages by the nation's largest armed rebel group,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

    "There is no Colombian government interference; quite the contrary,
there is government approval," Luis Carlos Restrepo, the nation's high
commissioner for peace, told media. "There is no military operation
aimed at preventing the hostages from being set free," he added.

    The FARC said in a statement dated Dec. 9 that they plan to free
Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo, a former legislator; Clara Rojas, a
former vice-president candidate; and Emmanuel, her son who was born in
captivity.

    Unconfirmed reports said the release could take place in the Amazon
jungle, where the borders of Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela meet.

    Two high-profile former mediators between the government and the
rebels have publicly said that they fear Colombian government will act
to prevent the release.

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was fired from his role as
mediator in November, told media in Cuba on Saturday that groups close
to or within the government "will try, I am sure, to prevent a
successful release."

    Colombian senator, Piedad Cordoba, who was sacked on the same day,
echoed his words from Venezuela's capital, Caracas. 

                                   ***

Reuters - Dec 24, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN24303272

Fears Colombian Army Could Thwart Hostage Release

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The liberation of three hostages held by
Colombian rebels could be delayed by troop movements near the
Venezuelan border where the captives were expected to be freed, a
senator involved in the talks said on Monday.

The guerrillas say they are about to release Clara Rojas, captured
during her 2002 vice presidential campaign; Rojas's young son Emmanuel,
fathered by one of her captors; and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez,
kidnapped in 2001.

But Colombian military actions could "delay or even frustrate" their
liberation, leftist Senator Piedad Cordoba told Caracol radio.

The military said there were no unusual troop movements or operations
that would impede a hand-over.

The Rojas and Gonzalez families had hoped to be reunited with the
kidnap victims by the Christmas holiday, but there was no word on
Monday about the time or place of a hand-over.

Cordoba and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez had acted as mediators with
the four-decade-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
before President Alvaro Uribe ended those talks last month after
accusing Chavez of breaking protocol by talking directly with a
Colombian general about the hostages.

But Chavez and Cordoba remain involved informally and the FARC says it
wants to hand the three captives over to Chavez or someone designated
by him.

Alfredo Rangel of Bogota thinktank Security & Democracy said military
operations should not delay the release.

"The jungle is huge and the Colombian army does not control all of it,"
Rangel said. "If the FARC wants to move the hostages toward Venezuela
or into Venezuela they can do it."

The liberation could set the stage for the release of other kidnap
victims, including three American anti-drug contractors and
French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, in exchange for
guerrillas locked in government jails.

Uribe, popular for his U.S.-backed crackdown on the rebels, has offered
to designate a limited safe area to swap 47 high-profile captives for
rebels held in government jails.

But the FARC insists he pull troops from a larger zone of its choosing
to facilitate an exchange. The rebels want to enter that zone armed,
which Uribe says he will not allow.

The FARC has been pushed onto the defensive by Uribe's military
policies but it still controls wide rural areas and holds about 750
hostages for ransom and political leverage. (Reporting by Hugh
Bronstein; Editing by Sandra Maler)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved


                                     ***

AFP via Google - Dec 23, 2007
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iwBpQsRGcUP9IjepThK4wvjrnufQ

Hostages' families in emotional vigil awaiting release

BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombia Sunday said there were no impediments to the
release of three hostages leftist FARC rebels have promised to hand
over to Venezuela, as families of abductees sent anguished Christmas
messages to their loved ones.

"There isn't any military operation aimed at preventing the hostages
from being freed," Peace Commissioner Carlos Restrepo said Sunday,
after an opposition lawmaker said ongoing military operations against
the rebels could delay the release.

Venezuelan authorities kept strict silence on the matter, although
President Hugo Chavez arrived from Cuba to finalize arrangements for
the handover.

"I have already come up with a plan to receive them," Chavez told
reporters in Havana Saturday at the close of a four-day visit, before
leaving for Caracas.

While it was unclear when and where the release would take place, a
source close to the Venezuelan government told AFP the hostages would
likely be turned over to a special envoy of President Chavez somewhere
along the Colombia-Venezuela border.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on Tuesday said they would
free Clara Rojas, her three- or four-year-old son Emmanuel -- born in
captivity to Rojas and a rebel father -- and lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez
de Perdomo.

Rojas was a political aide to Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian
politician kidnapped in 2002 while campaigning for the Colombian
presidency, whose plight has gripped Europeans and captured the
interest of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A video seized from FARC rebels earlier this month showing that
Betancourt and another 15 hostages were still alive, sparked renewed
interest in stalled negotiations between the rebels and the government
of President Alvaro Uribe for a prisoner swap -- 46 prominent rebel
hostages for some 500 FARC rebels in government jails.

As prisoner-swap talks struggled to get off the ground, FARC rebels
suddenly announced that three hostages would be released to Chavez, who
recently was fired by Uribe after three months as mediator between the
two sides.

On Sunday the Venezuelan newspaper Vea, which is close to the
government, said the hostage handover "is difficult" and suggested that
their release might not come until early January.

Meanwhile on Sunday Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
offered Uribe the use of Brazilian territory for negotiations for a
prisoner swap with FARC.

Families of dozens of hostages held by FARC held an emotional vigil
early Sunday as anxieties grew over the expected release of Gonzalez,
Rojas and her son.

With reports that the release could be put off until the New Year,
hundreds of relatives of other hostages joined the overnight vigil,
which was broadcast on Radio Caracol.

Rojas's family told El Tiempo newspaper Sunday that there were toys
around a Christmas tree at their home waiting for the little boy's
arrival.

"My sister will be shocked when she sees how her mother has aged two
decades in just five years and 10 months," Clara Rojas's brother Ivan
told the newspaper.

"Mama is afraid she will die before seeing her daughter again. I don't
think that she can wait another Christmas," he said of their mother,
who is 77.

The family of Betancourt sent the kidnapped politician words of
encouragement via the local radio station.

"Mom, it is hard, so hard to spend Christmas without you," Melanie
Delloye, Betancourt's daughter, said from Paris.

But the daughter said "we must remain strong" and asked that her mother
look after herself for the sake of her family.

"I would give my life to be at your side," Yolanda Pulecio,
Betancourt's mother, said in the message.

"Look after yourself, my love, eat well, take care, and may you come
out soon," she told her daughter, who was born on Christmas Day 1961.

On the Venezuelan border with Colombia, meanwhile, there was no
military activity that might suggest an imminent hostage handover from
Colombia, an AFP reporter in the area said.

Even in Barinas state -- whose governor is Hugo Chavez's father and
where it has been rumored the handover might take place -- there was no
unusual activity, the reporter added.

However, a military source told AFP that despite the Christmas holiday
season, most military officers in the border area remained
uncharacteristically at their posts.

                                   ***

AP via Google - Dec 24, 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h6aO3f4jCDOeg62OPjPFC6WfNxXQD8TNIPNG0

Colombia Hears From a Famous Captive

By VIVIAN SEQUERA

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Ingrid Betancourt was smiling ear to ear. It
was 1998, and she had just emerged as the biggest vote-getter in
Colombia's congressional elections.

In jeans and a T-shirt and swathed in perfume, the newly elected
senator bounded into the living room of her Bogota apartment, threw her
legs over the side of an armchair and faced reporters.

Betancourt cut an elegant, forceful figure. Her clean-government
crusade had badly rattled bought-and-paid-for careerists in Congress.
Now she was reeling off ideas for countering drug trafficking,
corruption and the leftist rebel FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia.

Nine years later, an ashen-faced, spindly-armed Betancourt barely moves
her bowed head.

A video delivered by her kidnappers shows her sitting in a jungle
clearing on a roughhewn bench, legs crossed, hands motionless on her
right knee over shapeless dungarees. Her chestnut hair drops over a
shoulder to her waist.

She has been a prisoner of the FARC for nearly six years since
venturing into rebel territory while campaigning for the presidency,
and this is the first proof that she is alive to surface since a 2003
video. Meanwhile, Betancourt has become an international cause celebre,
with foreign leaders from Nicolas Sarkozy of France to presidents
across Latin America pleading for the release of the French-Colombian
dual national.

With Betancourt are 45 other hostages whom the FARC wants to trade for
hundreds of its fighters in Colombian jails. They include soldiers,
police officers, a former senator and three Americans, civilian
Pentagon contract workers whose plane crashed in 2003 during a
surveillance flight over guerrilla territory thought to harbor cocaine
labs.

She speaks not a word in the brief proof-of-life video, but in a
12-page letter to her mother that accompanied it and was made public
Nov. 30, she gives voice to her frustration.

"Life here is no life, it's a dismal waste of time," she writes. "Here
we are the living dead."

Having tried at least five times to escape, Betancourt is often chained
by the neck to other hostages, sometimes all night, sometimes for
24-hour stretches, recounts Jhon Frank Pinchao, a police sergeant who
got away in April after eight years in FARC hands. He spent the last
three years in Betancourt's company.

Betancourt "writes a lot, but one day when she was sad she tore up a
notebook with her writings. She was very nostalgic that day, had just
got over hepatitis," Pinchao said.

Pinchao says their first few days together were testy.

"We fought a lot about our different ideological positions, but after a
few days we settled down."

She was always a fighter, especially against drug money infecting
Colombian politics. At one congress of the Liberal Party, which she
quit soon after, Betancourt hectored fellow delegates so caustically
they shoved her out of the room physically.

"They wanted to rip her to pieces," said Eduardo Chavez, a former
senator and member of the now defunct rebel group M-19. "When I heard
that speech, I called her and I said, 'You have my vote, what a show!'"
He became Betancourt's close friend and adviser.

Betancourt doesn't preach much these days.

"I try to keep quiet," she wrote to her mother. "I speak as little as
possible to avoid problems. The presence of a woman in the middle of so
many prisoners — who have been held for eight, 10 years — is a problem."

A fitness buff, she mentioned in her letter how she enjoyed swimming
early on in her captivity. But no longer.

"I'm physically unwell. I haven't resumed eating. My appetite is gone.
My hair is falling out," she wrote.

Ingrid Betancourt and her sister, Astrid, grew up in Paris, where their
father was a UNESCO delegate. Their mother, Yolanda Pulecio, is a
feisty former congresswoman and Miss Colombia.

They lived in an immense apartment with 18th-century furniture and
paintings by great masters.

Now, home is "a hammock strung between two posts, covered with mosquito
netting and with tent above that serves as a roof," Betancourt wrote
her mother. "I have a shelf for my things, which is to say a backpack
for clothing and the Bible that is my only luxury."

On Christmas Day she turns 46.

"I despise Christmas," Betancourt's mother said recently. Ever since
the kidnapping "there's no Santa Claus, not even a single ornament" in
her house.

Betancourt graduated from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris
and married a classmate, the French diplomat Fabrice Delloye. They have
two children, Melanie and Lorenzo.

The couple separated when Betancourt returned to Colombia after the
1989 assassination of anti-corruption presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galan, a friend and political ally of her mother.

Betancourt first ran for Congress in 1994, distributing condoms as
symbols of protection from corruption. Death threats — she didn't
specify their origin — prompted her to send her two children to live
with Delloye two years later. The children would never again live with
her full time.

She railed against the private right-wing militias known as
"paramilitaries" and against the FARC.

"We want to believe that the FARC continues to be concerned with
attaining greater justice in Colombia. But one can't fail to recognize
that some of its members have pacts and backing from drug traffickers,"
says the platform of her 2002 presidential candidacy. "The FARC must
shun such people and practices — and ban acts such as kidnapping."

Betancourt made a fateful, characteristically headstrong decision on
the night of Feb. 22, 2002. After peace talks broke down, President
Andres Pastrana had ordered troops into an area of southern Colombia
he'd ceded to the FARC. Betancourt called Nestor Leon Ramirez, the
mayor of San Vicente, the area's biggest town, to say she was coming.

"I told her there were problems getting here because of guerrilla
attacks but she was firm," Ramirez told the AP.

Betancourt and her running mate, Clara Rojas, flew to the state capital
of Florencia, hired a car and headed for San Vicente.

Then they disappeared.

The video and letter never mention a possible prisoner exchange, though
hopes were raised after President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela became
involved in mediation efforts in August.

In a communique received by Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency last week,
the FARC said it intended to release Rojas, a son she bore in captivity
and a female congresswoman held since 2001. The communique praised Hugo
Chavez's intercession but did not mention Betancourt.

Carlos Alonso Lucio, a former M-19 rebel and schoolmate of hers who
later sat with her in Congress, said: "She is a very proud woman and
she must really be standing up to these people. That's why they're
making her pay."

Lucio figures Betancourt's daily struggle with her captors must be
"like that of a chess player with a boxer."

Judging from her letter, the boxer is wearing down the chess player.

The past few years "I've been thinking that as long as I'm alive, as
long as I continue breathing, I have to keep storing hope," she wrote
her mother.

"No longer do I have the same strength."