A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages held by leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles was on the verge of collapse on Monday, with the guerrillas telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that Colombia's military was preventing the handoff.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe dismissed the claim as a lie by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) saying his government would permit a cease-fire corridor to let the rebels turn over the hostages.
"The FARC terrorist group doesn't have any excuse. They've fooled Colombia and now they want to fool the international community," Uribe said from the central Colombian city where Venezuela helicopters have been waiting since Friday for word from the guerrillas on where the hostages could be picked up.
PHOTO: AFP
Uribe raised the possibility that one of the hostages, a boy thought to be three years old and fathered by a guerrilla, could have turned up in Bogota.
The Colombian leader said only DNA tests were required to prove or disprove "this hypothesis" -- which he said could be done as soon as the boy's grandmother returns from Caracas, where she has been waiting for the release of her daughter, Clara Rojas, and grandson Emmanuel.
MESSAGE
Chavez said he received a message from FARC on Monday saying Colombian military operations were preventing them from freeing three hostages they had agreed to turn over to Chavez -- including the boy, Rojas and former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez.
Speaking on Venezuelan state TV, Chavez said the rebels wrote in a letter that "the military operational attempts in the zone impede us for now from turning over" the three hostages.
'ANOTHER OPTION'
Venezuela and FARC could consider "another option, a clandestine option" to evade Colombian patrols and turn over the hostages, Chavez said, adding that such a mission could be "extremely risky."
Alternately, Chavez said that "a ceasefire could open some doors."
FARC, in the letter read by Chavez and dated Sunday, said that "insisting on [a handover] in these conditions would be putting at risk" the lives of hostages and guerrillas sent to turn them over.
"FARC lies. The Colombian government keeps its word," Uribe said.
Uribe last month abruptly ended Chavez' efforts to broker a wider swap of 44 high-profile hostages -- including three US defense contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt -- for hundreds of jailed rebels.
But hostages' relatives have urged the leftist leader on, saying he was the only intermediary capable of breaking a government-rebel deadlock.
The two sides have not held face-to-face talks since Uribe took power in 2002.
The US-allied Uribe has instead used some US$600 million in annual military and intelligence aid from Washington to push the half-century-old insurgency deeper into the jungle.
Also See: Venezuela launches new currency in face of inflation
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS