Hostages Release Goes Far Beyond Personal Ordeal

COLOMBIA: Hostages Release Goes Far Beyond Personal Ordeal
Analysis by Ana Carrigan

LONDON, Dec 28 (IPS) - The long ordeal of two of the 45 hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose release was promised by the guerrilla leadership on Dec. 18, appears at long last to be coming to an end.

Weather permitting, former congresswoman Consuelo González, and Clara Rojas, the former running-mate of ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, together with Clara's three-year-old son Emmanuel -- the product of a relationship with a FARC guerrilla -- should be safely reunited with their families in Caracas by Saturday evening.

That at least is what all those now in Caracas, waiting as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez launched his elaborate plan Friday to fly helicopters and planes into Colombia to pick up the hostages in the jungle, are hoping.

Yet on Thursday night, the Colombian government, apparently without prior warning to the Venezuelan government, posted a communiqué on the website of the Colombian president’s office unilaterally setting a deadline for the complex rescue operation.

The statement said that Colombia's permission for Venezuelan aircraft to operate within Colombian airspace was set to expire at 1900 local time on Sunday.

But on Friday, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe reportedly received a call from his counterpart in France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Apparently, the deadline had been lifted by Friday afternoon.

Underlying this announcement, it is not hard to sense the frustration of the Colombian government, which has been diplomatically isolated by the enthusiastic international support for Chávez' successful efforts to secure the release of at least a few of the hostages.

Nor is it difficult to imagine the dismay of those Colombian generals who apparently believe they can, and are, winning the country’s four-decade civil war against the FARC, and who this week have found themselves suddenly outwitted, as their enemy has emerged into the international spotlight, escaping the political and diplomatic isolation in which the government's refusal to negotiate has succeeded in keeping them boxed in for the last six years.

Meanwhile, it can only be upsetting for the Colombian high command to find that in the midst of a major offensive in the rainforest war zone, they must obey orders to pull back their forces so as to create a de facto demilitarised area without any conditions attached.

Among those waiting in Caracas for the release of the hostages are the families of González and Rojas, who have both been held in guerrilla camps in the jungle for six years, and politicians and diplomatic representatives of five Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba and Ecuador) and two European countries (France and Switzerland), whose governments have come on board to support Chávez' efforts and serve as international "guarantors" of the handover of the hostages by the FARC.

In addition, there is a delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose participation as neutral intermediaries has been requested by the Colombian and Venezuelan governments and by the FARC, and reporters from all over the world, for whom Chávez has organised a flight to Colombia to report live on the release of the hostages.

But when this operation has run its course, what comes next? There are rumours a-plenty that the FARC may release one of the three U.S. hostages -- military contractors captured while working for the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia counterinsurgency and anti-drug strategy -- who is reportedly in poor health.

The FARC wants U.S. politicians to join the international effort to find solutions, not only to the large and complex issues standing in the way of a humanitarian exchange of all of the hostages for imprisoned insurgents, but also to engage U.S. policy-makers in longer term efforts to tackle issues like the drug trade and rural development, and eventual peace talks.

On Thursday, Brazilian delegate Marco Aurelio García, a seasoned diplomat and the personal envoy of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke briefly to a radio reporter on his arrival in Caracas. "We have firm hopes," he said, "that this will be the first step in a long process, aimed first at resolving the hostage crisis and secondly at finding a peaceful solution to the conflict that has gripped Colombia for more than 40 years."

At the end of the day, what is happening this weekend in Colombia and Venezuela is about more than the release of three hostages. What is happening right now, if all goes well, has the potential to dramatically alter the future of war and peace in Colombia.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40630

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