Source:
The GuardianEd Pilkington in New York
Wednesday January 2, 2008
... late on Monday the rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Farc, which is thought to be holding up to 3,000 hostages in the eastern jungles, sent a message to Chávez saying that military operations by the Colombian government had scuppered any handover.
Chávez accused his Colombian counterpart, President Álvaro Uribe, of lying. "Uribe went to dynamite the third phase of this operation," he said ...
The Colombian leader shot back, claiming Farc had broken its promises despite extensive guarantees from the government of security for both hostages and guerrillas. "The Farc terrorist group have fooled Colombia and now they want to fool the international community."
The breakdown adds to the mystery surrounding Emmanuel, the boy aged three or four who was fathered by a Farc rebel and born to one of the hostages, Clara Rojas. Uribe stunned observers with the suggestion that the boy may be living in a foster home in Bogotá. DNA tests on the boy and Rojas's mother are planned to verify the claim ...
Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2233982,00.html
Colombia hostage deal fiasco bad news for captives
Tue Jan 1, 2008 4:27pm EST
By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - ...But the rescue operation evaporated on Monday with the rebels and Chavez accusing conservative President Alvaro Uribe of wrecking it by ordering military operations in the jungle region where the three captives were believed to be held ...
Uribe denied the allegation and accused the rebels of lying. Analysts say it will now be very difficult to revive the rescue mission or negotiate the release of other hostages.
"After this, the guerrillas and the government will dig in their heels," political commentator Daniel Coronell said on Tuesday. "The hostages will probably spend years more in the jungle before another serious effort can be mounted to try to free them." ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN01612491US, Colombia discuss hostage situation
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — US President George W. Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Monday discussed the potential release of three Colombian hostages held by leftist rebels, the White House said.
Uribe gave Bush the latest information about efforts to free the three from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), "noting that various issues were still being worked out," said spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Uribe was set to travel to Villavicencio, Colombia, Monday to meet international guarantors monitoring the potential release, as officials awaited word from the FARC on where and when the handover might occur ...
Bush, poised to ring in 2008 at his Texas ranch, also assured Uribe of his "strong support" for winning US congressional approval of the embattled US-Colombia free trade agreement, said Stanzel ...
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhLx68RZuxJy-OtEFWEu_fduDyIwHostage Rescue in Colombia Collapses
By TOBY MUSE
Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and observers from France, Switzerland and four leftist Latin American governments abandoned Villavicencio on Monday, saying only in a terse statement they would "continue their mission" once all conditions for the hostages' release were met ...
Uribe said a 3-year old child named Juan David Gomez, matching the description of Emmanuel provided by escaped hostages and suffering from malnutrition, malaria and jungle-born leishmaniasis, may have been living for the past two and a half years with at a foster home in Bogota.
The child was turned over in the eastern city of San Jose del Guaviare, a FARC stronghold, in 2005 by a man who said he was the boy's great uncle and who now claims to be his father. The boy's mother was reported as disappeared, according to the child welfare agency case file read to journalists by peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo.
The Colombian leader said only DNA tests were required to prove or disprove "this hypothesis" — which he said could be done as soon as the boy's grandmother returns from Caracas, where she was awaiting the handover of her daughter and grandson ...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4KHTkP2iDNsZIPq48q97-4SvKOQD8TSRD400 Colombian hostage release turns on DNA test
CARACAS (AFP) — Relatives of a child born to a hostage mother and a guerrilla father will undergo DNA testing Tuesday to determine whether the child is still a captive or in a Bogota orphanage, as the Colombian president has charged ... In a statement read by Chavez Monday, FARC said it delayed the release because of military operations in the area where it was to take place. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the real reason was that the rebels could not produce Emmanuel Rojas ...
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpPQMMcJ9ruB9gIaMt8it3FcZijgColombian hostage release stalls indefinitely
... Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez .. called the child theory "a bunch of smoke." He said he knew "Uribe and his team well. They're a team that makes up things. My experience leads me to doubt Uribe's team and their hypotheses ..."
Chavez later said he would pursue "new options" in the release effort ...
"Intense military operations in the zone make it impossible now" to release the three, the Marxist FARC rebels said in a statement read by Chavez, who has been spearheading the delicate mission ...
But Uribe denied reports of fighting and said Bogota had agreed to open a safe corridor for the mission, which is operating under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross ...
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hWOJw37T-sNJ7_quPn_H3TDBJPVg
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