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Chavez wins freedom for Colombian hostages

— Photo: Xinhua

HUGE RELIEF: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez kisses Clara Rojas, former Colombian vice-presidential candidate, in Caracas on Thursday.

Caracas/Bogota: Venezuelan Red Cross helicopters plucked two high-profile Colombian hostages from the jungle on Thursday, ending their six-year kidnap ordeal and raising hopes for other hostages.

A day of drama ended in breakthrough after Clara Rojas, a former Colombian Vice-Presidential candidate, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a former member of the country’s congress, were retrieved from a remote region in eastern Colombia, in a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

An earlier deal to release them in December broke down.

“I told them ‘Welcome to life, welcome to life’,” Mr. Chavez told journalists shortly after speaking to the former hostages by telephone.

They were emotional and in good health, he said.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, agreed to the handover after months of mediation by Mr. Chavez, a process which verged on fiasco and triggered furious rows between Venezuela’s leader and Colombia’s government.

On Wednesday the rebels notified Mr. Chavez, a fellow left-winger whom they respect, that they would release the women in the south-eastern state of Guaviare bordering Venezuela.

Colombia’s armed forces agreed to temporarily suspend operations as the Red Cross helicopters flew to the rendezvous on Thursday.

“It still seems like I’m kind of dreaming,” said Ms. Rojas’s elderly mother, Clara Gonzalez de Rojas. “This is the biggest miracle my God could have ever given me. I’ll be truly happy when I go with my daughter to retrieve my little grandson.”

Ms. Rojas (44), was running mate to presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt when the two were kidnapped in February, 2002.

She gave birth to a baby boy named Emmanuel in 2004, reportedly after a liaison with one of her captors.

Mother and son, as well as Consuelo Gonzalez (57), who was abducted in September 2001, were due to be freed in late December. The deal collapsed when it emerged that the rebels did not have the boy.

He had somehow been passed into the government’s foster care system while he was still an infant and had been living in the capital Bogota.

That revelation shook the rebels’ credibility and embarrassed Mr. Chavez’s elaborate reception committee, which included film director Oliver Stone.

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative and unbending foe of the rebels, said it proved that FARC could not be trusted.

Thursday’s releases, conducted under the Red Cross aegis and without a media circus, should mend some fences between the two governments, said Michael Shifter, of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank.

“Uribe should get some credit for having successfully embarrassed FARC over the Emmanuele incident, and also for accommodating Chavez’s efforts to secure the release. Chavez will save face and regain some standing as a leader committed to regional peace.”

For the relatives of the two freed hostages waiting in a Caracas hotel the political wrangling was a sideshow to their joy and relief.

All were expected to fly home to Bogota later this week, where Ms. Rojas would be reunited with her son.

For the families of the other estimated 750 hostages it was a bittersweet day which intensified their longing.

Many are being held for financial ransom, while 46 high-profile captives, including Ms. Betancourt and three U.S. defence contractors, are being kept as political bargaining chips.

“This has to be the beginning of an effort that culminates with the release of all the “exchangeable” hostages and all the kidnap victims held for ransom,” said a Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba who acted as a facilitator for Mr. Chavez.

Thursday’s breakthrough will renew pressure on Colombia’s government to make concessions to secure other releases, said Roman Ortiz, a security analyst in Bogota. The fact that the rebels dropped their precondition for a demilitarised zone as a precursor to negotiations — a previous sticking point — put the ball in their court, he said. “They have to decide what they will demand now.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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