Colombia: French Negotiators Were to Meet Slain Rebel on Day He Was Killed

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia: French Negotiators Were to Meet Slain Rebel on Day He Was Killed
By Kintto Lucas, IPS News
Posted on March 10, 2008, Printed on March 11, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/79215/

Three personal envoys of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who were in Ecuador since October 2007, were phoned Saturday Mar. 1 by Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, who warned them not to go to a meeting with guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes because they would be in danger.

Sarkozy's envoys in Ecuador, who were there with the consent of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, were negotiating with Reyes the release of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held hostage by the guerrillas for six years, said a French diplomatic source who wished not to be named.

The source told IPS that the three French negotiators were in a town near the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) camp that was bombed by the Colombian military in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The raid, carried out three kilometers from the Colombian border, killed Reyes -- the rebel group's international spokesman -- and around two dozen other insurgents.

The envoys were on their way to a meeting that morning with Reyes, who was actually already dead, when they received Restrepo's phone call warning them not to approach the contact point, for their own safety.

When Colombia announced that Reyes had been killed, the French government expressed its displeasure. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the press that "It's bad news that the man we were talking to is dead."

The rebel leader was France's contact in the negotiations for the release of Betancourt, a French-Colombian citizen, which Sarkozy has made a top priority of his government.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/79215

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You notice this flies in the face of the information we were given that Colombia chased the rebels over into Ecuador because they were FIRING AT THEM, while the evidence shows they were all actually asleep when they were hit with US bombs, after US planes surveilled the area!

See this thread from LBN on that aspect:
Ecuador: Colombia used U.S. weapons in attack on FARC camp

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3213872

[Peace Patriot]

1. So Uribe's claim of "hot pursuit" was a load of bull, eh? Like puppetmaster,

...like puppet.

This is so outrageous! Bush U.S./Colombia knew that the Presidents of France, Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela were all working on this hostage release (of Betancourt and 12 others). And--using U.S. ordinance and U.S. surveillance--they went and BOMBED the chief FARC hostage negotiator and more than twenty others (including several visiting Mexican students, who were apparently there to assist the humanitarian mission) IN THEIR SLEEP, and sent Colombian soldiers over the border to shoot any survivors--some of them in the back--as they ran around in their underwear trying to escape death.

Here is what the hostages that Chavez got released last month said about their desire for a political settlement of this 40+ year civil war just days before Bush/Uribe deliberately killed the FARC hostage negotiator....

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Chavez, freed FARC hostages call for political solution to Colombian conflict
February 29th 2008, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com
Luis Eladio Pérez and Gloria Polanco speaking at the press conference in Caracas (Reuters)

Caracas, March 1, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called for international mediation group to negotiate a humanitarian accord in neighboring Colombia, after a successful Venezuelan led humanitarian mission secured the release of four former legislators held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), on Wednesday.

During a telephone call to state owned VTV Thursday, Chavez indicated that France, Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina as well as the Organization of American States support such a move. It is "essential" that Venezuela is part of any international mediation group, because "the FARC have demonstrated that they don't believe in anyone else," he added.

In a communiqué, released minutes after the hostage handover the FARC said this would be the last unilateral hostage release. The FARC reiterated their longstanding call for a military free zone as a precondition for any further negotiations for a humanitarian exchange of 40 remaining high profile hostages for 500 imprisoned guerrillas. However, the Colombian government immediately rejected this proposal.

Chavez said the desire for peace by the majority of Colombians and that the pressure of world opinion would force Uribe to change his position.

"President Uribe is going to have to change his position. Everybody is in agreement except for Uribe, " he declared.

Speaking at a press conference in Caracas on Thursday night, the former Colombian legislators, Luis Eladio Pérez, Jorge Gechem, Orlando Beltrán and Gloria Polanco, also spoke out in favor of a military free zone to facilitate a humanitarian exchange.

"I publicly challenge President Alvaro Uribe to demonstrate the success of his policy of democratic security and clear the military from the municipalities of Pradera and Florida and after 45 days the Armed Forces can recuperate this territory," Perez said after his liberation. "The solution is political, Mr. President Uribe," he repeated twice during the press conference.

"If you persist in the foolishness of insisting on a military rescue you are going to receive, Mr President Uribe, 40 or 50 corpses. It is absurd to think of a military rescue with the conditions that we had in captivity. There would be a massacre," Pérez stressed.

He revealed that the four recently liberated ex legislators have a proposal to present "to President Uribe, the President (of France Nicholas) Sarkozy and, of course, to President (of Venezuela, Hugo) Chavez." This proposal would only be made public after the three heads of state had been informed, he said.

Pérez who classified the FARC as a "political military group who use terrorist practices" also referred to former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, captured by the guerrillas in 2001, who he said is in a "very bad state of health."

In a message released in 2003 demonstrating Betancourt's proof of life, the former presidential candidate indicated that she was opposed any form of military rescue, as she feared a repeat of the tragedy that occurred in May that year when ex governor of Antioquia, Gilberto Echeverri, and the del ex Defense Minister, Guillermo Gaviria, died during a botched military rescue ordered by Uribe.

Betancourt maintains this position Perez said, however she is also conscious "of the high risk and lack of commitment of the President of the Republic."

In contrast Betancourt calls for a political solution to the conflict based on the Geneva Convention and believes that "fundamentally President Uribe has to recognize the political status of the FARC guerrillas," Perez said.

Pérez also affirmed that after an attempted escape, Betancourt, "remained chained up during the night," and her captors, "humiliated her, obliged her to walk barefoot, tied her to trees and rationed her food."

Ex congressman Orlando Beltrán condemned "all terrorist acts, wherever they come from. I condemn the terrorism of the FARC, of the paramilitaries and the terrorism of the State." He pointed out that Colombia "is the only country in the world that has disappeared an entire political movement, more than six thousand leaders of Unión Patriótica were disappeared, to speak only of this case."

Under a previous peace accord in the 1980's the FARC demobilized and formed Unión Patriótica, however after they laid down their arms thousands of former guerrillas were hunted down by paramilitaries, backed by the Colombian state, and massacred, forcing them back into the armed struggle.

Beltrán added that the Colombian State "has to assume responsibility and understand that they must create the conditions to achieve a humanitarian accord. I don't understand why, when make these handovers in a unilateral manner, they say they are not going to clear the military from a centimeter of the national territory."

Gloria Polanco asserted, "It is necessary to reach the heart of President Uribe, to speak to him, to explain, because he has to understand that if he does not clear the military from Pradera and Florida, which is what the FARC ask, our comrades will die in captivity."

"I am asking for a humanitarian accord, because they have to place value on life, not on a piece of land, not on a piece of territory," she said.

All four ex-legislators confirmed that they would participate in an international day of action organized by human rights organizations on March 6 in protest against paramilitary violence in Colombia. Uribe has condemned the protest scheduled to take place in some 150 cities around the world, claiming it is organized by the FARC.

(emphasis added)
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3213
(Note: Venezuela Analysis is a Fair Use web site.)

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And now Uribe/Bush are calling Chavez and Correa "terrorists"--and when are they going to start calling Cristina Fernandez (Argentina) and Nicholas Sarkovy (France) "terrorists"? Chavez and Correa risked their reputations to negotiate hostage releases, and get a peace process started to end this 40+ year horror in Colombia, in which, according to every human righs group on earth--the Colombian security forces and closely tied rightwing paramilitaries are guilty of the bulk of the killing, which included slaughtering 6,000 FARC supporters, political candidates and office holders, the last time FARC tried to demobilize. Bush/Uribe want WAR--because its very lucrative ($5 billion in military aid to Colombia, from us bankrupt U.S. taxpayers), and because Exxon Mobil and pals want to regain control of the Andes oil fields.

As one of the hostages said: "'I publicly challenge President Alvaro Uribe to demonstrate the success of his policy of democratic security and clear the military from the municipalities of Pradera and Florida and after 45 days the Armed Forces can recuperate this territory,' (Luis) Perez said after his liberation. 'The solution is political, Mr. President Uribe,' he repeated twice during the press conference."

And as President Chavez said: "Everybody is in agreement except for Uribe." And he might have added, Uribe's pals in the drug and weapons trade, the Bush Junta and associated global corporate predators.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Uribe/Colombia inflicted "huge bombing" on first two hostages, during their release

"When the two hostages, Consuelo Gonzalez and Clara Rojas, were finally released on January 10, Gonzalez - a former Colombian congresswoman -- told this story to the press:

"'On December 21, we began to walk toward the location where they were going to free us and we walked almost 20 days. During that time, we were forced to run several times because the soldiers were very close,' she said. Gonzalez also lamented that on the day that Alvaro Uribe set as a deadline for the release, the Colombian armed forces launched the worst attack on the zone where they were located. 'On the 31st, we realized that there was going to be a very big mobilization and, in the moment that we were ready to be released, there was a huge bombardment and we had to relocate quickly to another place.'"

No English-language reporters questioned the truth of Gonzalez' testimony; it was simply not reported. The one exception was an Associated Press article, where it was buried and barely mentioned, and edited out of most newspapers. By eliminating this vital information, the media prevented readers from knowing that the Colombian government had reneged on its end of the bargain, putting the lives of the hostages at risk in what looked like an attempt to embarrass Chavez and abort the mission."

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/75697/

"Latin America News Coverage: Half the Story Is Worse Than None"
By Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. Posted February 1, 2008.

[Judi Lynn]

3. That testimony would have contradicted the elaborate lie the Uribe/Bush media were pushing.

What a shame to see it carefully laid out in ways that leave no doubt whatsoever, and realize our own media deliberately lied to us even one more time. This is an established pattern, and people should start paying attention. It's actually dangerous.

As the article you posted said:

No English-language reporters questioned the truth of Gonzalez' testimony; it was simply not reported.

Great! Our media won't allow anything in which disputes their lie handed to them by the White House.