• by Constanza Vieira* (bogotÁ)
• Tuesday, February 03, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Alan Jara, the former governor of the central province of Meta, was released by Colombian guerrillas on Tuesday, instead of Monday as originally scheduled. Former regional lawmaker for the western province of Valle del Cauca, Sigifredo López, was scheduled to have been freed on Wednesday, but his handover has now been postponed until Thursday.

Non-fulfilment of the conditions agreed between the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Colombian armed forces during the operation to release four members of the security forces held by the guerrillas on Sunday caused a day's delay in the freeing of the two civilian hostages.

In its customary diplomatic language, the ICRC confirmed Monday that the government had violated its guarantees for the mission that picked up three police officers and one soldier from their former captors, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Minutes after the ICRC declaration, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe ordered the cancellation of all air force flights, at any altitude, during the second and third phases of the hostage rescue operation.

Jara was released in the southern province of Guaviare, and López is expected to be freed in the southwest of this Andean country.

The ICRC had already managed to achieve the reversal of one presidential order, at midnight on Sunday, to exclude Colombians for Peace, a civil society group led by opposition Liberal Party Senator Piedad Córdoba, from the remaining handover missions.

The group has carried on a 'Diálogo Público Epistolar' (an exchange of open letters) with the FARC since September.

Uribe had issued an order that only the ICRC and members of the Brazilian air force, which has loaned helicopters and their crews, could take part in future rescue operations.

The exclusion of Colombians for Peace, made up of 150 intellectuals, artists and journalists, and now supported by a further 130,000 signatures, would probably have meant the end of the current hostage release process, because this is a gesture by the FARC in recognition of the group's actions.

The crisis arose because journalist Jorge Enrique Botero, a member of the delegation of Colombians for Peace which travelled on Sunday to the Caguán river to pick up the four members of the security services, complained by satellite phone from the handover site that the humanitarian mission was being followed and harassed by the military.

The interference by the armed forces came within a hairsbreadth of causing the failure of the hostage release mission.

The Colombians for Peace delegation, which also included Córdoba, feminist leader Olga Amparo Sánchez and journalist Daniel Samper Pizano, brought back audio and videotapes, recorded by Botero, showing the military actions.

Botero said that it was only 'the efforts and persistence of the Red Cross and Senator Piedad Córdoba, together with the FARC's firm decision to continue with the operation, that ultimately brought about the successful release of the three police officers and one soldier.'

The contents and context of the tape recordings were discussed by Botero, the ICRC and Córdoba at a lengthy meeting on Sunday night with the Colombian government's High Commissioner for Peace, Luis Carlos Restrepo, IPS learned.

The head of the ICRC delegation in Colombia, Christophe Beney, made an urgent plea on Sunday night to maintain 'calm and prudence,' saying that nothing justified jeopardising the return to their homes of persons deprived of their freedom.

After the ICRC talks with the government, Córdoba announced at midday on Monday that Colombians for Peace would make no statement on the crisis, but would continue working for an end to the war that has afflicted this country for 45 years and is rooted in conflicts dating back to the 1940s.

The senator also condemned the terrorist attack perpetrated a few minutes before midnight in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca province, when a car bomb killed two people and damaged a building housing a police archive as well as the regional headquarters of the Communist Party.

Uribe almost immediately blamed the FARC for the attack, and appeared to use the attack to justify the exclusion of Colombians for Peace from the rescue missions.

Jara had been a FARC hostage since July 2001, and López since April 2002. They were held pending a humanitarian exchange with jailed FARC rebels. The guerrillas are holding 22 army and police officers and non-commissioned officers, including a general.

Uribe is against a humanitarian exchange; instead, he has offered large sums of money and residence abroad to members of the FARC guarding the hostages being held for exchange, as well as the guards of the many hostages being held for ransom.

While Samper, the other journalist who was present at the handover of the four hostages, is keeping silent about what happened at the Caguán river, Botero has been subjected to a hail of criticism for revealing the risks to which the release operation was exposed.

IPS asked historian Jaime Zuluaga, professor emeritus at the state National University of Colombia and academic director of the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), why information should be regarded as harmful in these cases.

'It depends on the priorities at a given moment,' he told IPS.

'If the priority is to carry out the operation successfully so that some people regain their freedom, complete transparency has to be temporarily sacrificed. To start an argument at that particular time is to put the operation at risk,' he said.

In Zuluaga's view, it is not a matter of 'hiding the facts and bowing one's head, but of setting priorities. Once the hostages are free, a well-documented, serious communiqué can be issued, explaining how the operation went ahead in spite of the obstacles.'

'In political terms, this is a more effective approach. The alternative creates the impression that each side is vying for political advantage, and the freedom of the hostages is a secondary consideration,' he added. However, 'I have no doubt that both the FARC and the armed forces are trying to make political capital out of this whole process.'

In his view, 'if President Uribe's priority were the freedom of these people,' he would have kept silent in the face of the accusations, said Zuluaga, 'and he would have said: let them be released, and afterwards we will discuss the matter.'

'In an armed conflict, one cannot expect the parties not to try to gain a political advantage. But if the goal and the prime interest is a humanitarian mission and securing people's freedom, one must avoid being caught up in that game,' he said.

*Constanza Vieira is a signatory of the Diálogo Público Epistolar (exchange of open letters between Colombians for Peace and the FARC).

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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