Colombia’s Uribe unmasks the FARC

In fact, on November 30, Uribe abruptly ended Chávez’s intervention because the former said that the latter had overstepped his bounds and violated their agreement by directly contacting the head of Colombia’s army.[1] There are allegations that Chávez tried to secure an open area so that he and FARC members could meet without the Colombian government’s permission. It was alleged that Chavez tried to bribe the military to stage a coup against Uribe. The commander in chief went directly to Uribe and told him what he knew. According to País Libre, a leader association in Latin America and the Caribbean in preventing kidnapping, the FARC has 3,000 hostages.  

Chávez said that ending his mediation was a betrayal and that the FARC would almost certainly have turned over some hostages by Christmas. He insulted Uribe calling him a "liar and cynic" who "does not want peace", adding that Colombia "deserves a better president" and "froze" relations with Bogotá.[2] However, it seems that Chávez kept communicating with the FARC informally, which only adds fuel to claims that he and the FARC have a very close relationship. It was revealed from the letters recovered from hostage Ingrid Betancourt that she listens to Chávez’s TV and radio program "Hello President" daily.

On December 18, Chávez announced that the FARC had told him that they would hand over three hostages: Consuelo González, a former congresswoman held since 2001, Clara Rojas, a politician kidnapped in 2002 and her son Emmanuel fathered by one of the FARC members. Colombia approved the renewed role for Chávez, and on December 28th, the Venezuelan President assembled a high-profile team, including former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, representatives of France, Brazil and several other countries and even Hollywood director, Oliver Stone, a self-proclaimed Chávez supporter who would document the release. They flew in Venezuelan helicopters and arrived in Colombia to witness the liberation of the hostages, calling this mission "Operation Emmanuel."

However, after four days, the plan fell through. The FARC failed to deliver the hostages and never gave the information of the exact location for the release of the captives. In addition to that, President Uribe revealed startling new developments: the FARC would not free the hostages because the boy, born in captivity three and a half years ago was not in their hands at all. According to the Colombian president, Emmanuel, is thought to have been in foster care since June 2005, under the name Juan David Gómez Tapiero, apparently given by FARC to a local rural family due to his poor health. The International Red Cross confirmed Uribe’s claim that his government informed the organization of the child’s existence. Envoys have already conducted preliminary DNA testing and announced that the probabilities of this boy being Emmanuel are very high.

Senior governmental officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that military intelligence has determined that while Chávez was overseeing the "rescue" preparations, the FARC was frantically trying to locate Emmanuel. The FARC is widely dispersed and has a decentralized command so the group’s leaders may not have realized they no longer had the boy or they may have thought they could quickly recover him. The government received a tip about the boy’s real whereabouts and authorities began to go through the records of about 100 children who had been turned over to child protection services in southern Colombia in 2005. They narrowed their search to three boys and in few days said they had located Emmanuel.

Colombia ‘s top peace negotiator, Luis Carlos Restrepo said that the boy believed to be Emmanuel was 11 months old and malnourished when he was brought to a child welfare agency in the small town of San José del Guaviare and that he was currently living in a foster home in Bogotá. Authorities took responsibility and custody of the child in view of his poor health conditions when he was admitted to a hospital. Officials say that the boy in question (Juan David) had suffered an injury at birth, very similar to the injury that an escaped police officer, Juan Pinchao, reported Emmanuel had suffered. The child had burn marks on one hand and suffered from malaria, which is unheard of in Bogotá. At first Gómez told authorities the boy had been born on July 20, 2004 to his niece, but in reality, Emmanuel was entrusted by the FARC to Gómez to take care of him. After promising to release Emmanuel together with her mother, Clara Rojas, the FARC had threatened to kill Gómez if he failed to hand over the boy by December 30^th so Gómez went to the authorities to retrieve him but his request was denied. When the truth was revealed, Gómez and his family were taken to Bogotá to give testimony to the Colombian Attorney General. The family is currently under government protection.

When Chávez was informed about this, he became irritated at first but then, as unpredictable as ever, he "wished" Uribe "happy holidays" and told him: "Let’s put aside our differences and work together for peace in Colombia." But Uribe and his government weren’t buying Chavez’s sudden change of heart. "When the FARC began to say that they were not turning over the hostages, supposedly because of military operations, when we had done everything possible within our reach to facilitate the hand over, we saw that the FARC was trying to fool Chávez, the international community and us," said Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in a telephone interview. The FARC began accusing the Colombian military of launching operations, which Santos and the other senior officials denied. Uribe dismissed the FARC claim as a lie, saying his government would permit a cease-fire corridor to let the terrorist group turn over the long-held captives. "The FARC don’t have any excuses," Uribe said from the central Colombian city of Villavicencio, which had served as the base for coordination efforts."[3]

Analysis

It is possible that Chávez orchestrated the rescue to have his "moment of glory" and lift his image after his defeat in the December referendum , his first major political defeat since he became President in 1998. He even had Hollywood filmmaker, Oliver Stone on hand to document the events which would have boosted Chavez’s image worldwide had the rescue been successful. He hoped the deal would re-shape his credentials as a statesman after developing a reputation for frequent diplomatic blunders and insulting many of the world’s leaders. The success of "Operation Emmanuel" would have enhanced his leadership in Latin America. As we reported in our latest issue, as Chávez was trying to foist himself onto the world stage as an honest negotiator and peacemaker, he reportedly gives sanctuary to the FARC inside Venezuela, provides them with safe houses and arms and views them as a viable political party instead of a long established Marxist insurgency.

By continuing to negotiate secretly with the FARC, Chávez was trying to pressure Uribe to give into the terrorists. The Venezuelan President blamed his Colombian counterpart for the failure of the hostage release in the first attempt in November and portrayed him as a villain, humiliating and insulting him publicly. With this hostage liberation, Chávez and the FARC wanted to weaken Uribe’s image. But Uribe was able to unmask the terrorist group. The FARC could still try to free the hostages at any moment just to help Chávez’s image and prove Uribe wrong. In fact, just today, Thursday 10, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) personnel transported aboard Venezuelan aircraft apparently will be in charge of receiving the two hostages. Only three people are joining the mission: Venezuelan Interior Minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a media adviser of the Venezuelan government and the ambassador of Cuba in Caracas, Germán Sánchez Otero. The Colombian government has announced that humanitarian operations with the presence of other countries will be admitted, but not clandestine actions to achieve the release of prisoners and only when the Red Cross receives the coordinates, will military forces guarantee access for the liberation of prisoners. We will see what happens.

This entire episode has shown Uribe to be a wise and experienced leader, a real democrat and a true ally of the United States in the war against terrorism. It is time for the United States Congress to recognize this once and for all and reward Colombia by ratifying the Free Trade Agreement and boosting Plan Colombia which has helped to contain the FARC, improve the economy, and bring a much greater sense of security and stability to the people of Colombia.