A few days ago, there was a lot of news about three FARC hostages being released, in a deal brokered by Hugo Chavez after the Colombian George Bush, President Alvaro Uribe, had told Chavez he could no longer negotiate for Colombia with the rebels. The rebels announced that they would unilaterally release Ingrid Betancourt’s campaign manager, Clara Rojas, and her 3 or 4 year old son, apparently a Stockholm Syndrome child, and another hostage who is a former Colombian congresswoman. This was all supposed to happen two days ago, and some Venezuelan helicopters were allowed to fly to Villavicencio, a town outside Bogota, to wait for further instructions about where to pick up the hostages in the jungle. Chavez went there, of course, along with some politicians invited by him and even Oliver Stone, a film director from the US. In order to show that he is still in charge, the Colombian George Bush gave them a 7:00PM Sunday deadline. And, he decided to show up himself at the scene, to get in on the credit taking when the time came.
The deadline was bullshit from the start, of course, and of course the rebels would not meet it, just to show the Colombian George Bush that he was not really in charge. If he had thought for a minute about it, there was obviously no way for him to win that one, since if he called the whole operation off because of a deadline, he would have to take the heat from everybody, the press, the families, the rest of the world, including the French George Bush (Sarksozy), who is also out to get some of the credit if anyone does get released. So, theColombian George Bush had one of his ministers announce that the deadline was flexible (why didn’t he announce this himself??? Hmmm….)–so the deadline quickly became no deadline.
So, on Saturday they couldn’t perform the rescue because they couldn’t get it together before the airport closed. Hmmm…
Then on Sunday, when everyone should have been ready, it failed to happen again. The FARC insist that the Colombian government didn’t live up to their end of the bargain, security-wise (very possibly true) and Uribe swears that the FARC never had the 3 year old kid in the first place. That sounds a little strange, since obviously if FARC doesn’t have the kid, their plan would have to fall apart at some point, so why would they even begin a farce of a hostage release with hostages they don’t have? They could easily have used one of their other hostages that they are definitely known to have.
Of course this whole operation didn’t happen as planned, because as much as the various parties might hate each other, it’s in ALL of their interests to drag it out. The FARC gets the world stage, which they haven’t been able to command for quite a while, Chavez gets to look like a good guy and a statesman and smarter than Uribe, but Uribe also gets a platform for his propoganda, even though he doesn’t seem to be playing the situation very well.
The losers, of course, are the actual hostages and their families, and all the Colombians who thought there might be some actual movement here.
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