If Colombia's leftist rebels safely deliver three hostages to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it will likely increase pressure for government concessions to achieve what has so far proven impossible: the swap of 44 other high-profile captives for hundreds of rebels imprisoned in Colombia and the US.
As relatives and international observers gathered in Caracas on Thursday, Chavez was preparing to send Venezuelan helicopters into Colombia's lawless jungles yesterday in order to retrieve the initial three hostages from a rebel hideaway.
The liberation of former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez, Clara Rojas and her three-year old son Emmanuel -- a child allegedly fathered by a rebel captor -- is expected to take place in an unspecified Colombian location as early as Friday.
It's the latest move in a violent chess game between the rebels and Colombia's US-aligned government, which have been at war for five decades. A larger swap of hostages for rebel prisoners would be a much bigger move toward peace.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's (FARC) unilateral release of the first three hostages was announced as a goodwill gesture -- but it serves other purposes as well. Politically, the ploy has isolated the FARC's avowed enemy, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Allowing the Venezuelans to cross battle lines and extract the hostages is risky for the rebels, since Colombia's military is sure to track the two Russian-made MI-17 helicopters authorized to enter its airspace. But the handover also tests the waters for more direct negotiations, which haven't happened since Uribe took office in 2002.
With tremendous mistrust on both sides, they haven't been able to come to terms on a temporary demilitarized zone where unarmed rebels and government representatives might come together with international observers to discuss a larger prisoner swap.
For Chavez, the rebels' hand-picked foil, it's an opportunity to revive a peacemaking role Uribe abruptly ended only weeks earlier after accusing the firebrand leftist of overstepping his mandate by contacting Colombia's army chief.
Chavez still hopes to mediate a broader swap of all the hostages for jailed rebels, one of his top ministers, diplomat Rodolfo Sanz, said on Thursday.
Chavez invited an international commission of observers from France, Argentina, Brazil as well as other Latin American countries to monitor the delicate operation. A planeload of international journalists will be following shortly behind to meet the hostages in Venezuela.
Uribe, vacationing at his ranch, has been all but sidelined from the humanitarian mission.
Publicly derided by Chavez as Washington's "lapdog," the leader now faces the greater insult of seeing Venezuelan military aircraft on Colombian soil.
Washington has been more amenable to Uribe's public threats to rescue the hostages militarily. But families of the hostages fear a bloodbath. Many past military encounters have ended with hostages being killed.
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