Leftist Colombian rebels freed their fifth hostage in three days on Tuesday, a former governor who said that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the guerrillas are equally to blame for the country’s still-festering conflict.
Alan Jara, 51, looked fit but thin, wearing a gray canvas hat and carrying a rucksack across which a battered and blackened pot was strapped.
The rebels handed Jara over to the International Red Cross in eastern jungles around noon. The Red Cross then flew him in a helicopter to the regional capital of Villavicencio, his hometown in the eastern lowlands.
PHOTO: AFP
“I’ve rested for seven years,” Jara told reporters at the airport. “Now it’s time to get to work.”
Jara stepped off the chopper into the embrace of his wife and son, 15-year-old Alan Felipe, who had lived half his life without his father. Jara spent a private 20 minutes with the family before speaking with the news media.
“He looks a little worn out to me,” Alan Felipe said.
Jara said he had thyroid trouble and an unspecified eye problem.
Like most newly freed hostages, Jara was quick to offer his opinion on why Colombia’s 45-year-old, class-based conflict persists.
“It would seem this country’s conflict suits President Uribe and it would seem the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] — and this is the perversity — likes that Uribe is in power,” Jara said during a rambling two-hour news conference.
He said Uribe’s all-out war on FARC has failed to weaken the insurgents.
Jara was the fifth hostage released this week by FARC, which also has promised to free former provincial lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, by today.
He said only a negotiated solution can end the conflict.
“I feel with all my heart that Uribe didn’t do anything for our freedom,” he said.
Uribe met Jara and his family for more than an hour and 45 minutes later on Tuesday in Villavicencio.
Afterward, the president told about 100 people who had gathered outside Jara’s home that he respected what the former governor had to say.
“What we want is that he is happy with his countrymen,” he said.
Uribe insists this week’s hostage releases are no more than attention-grabbing antics staged by the rebels to deceive Colombians about their true intent. He and foreign governments have called on FARC to renounce kidnapping and free all its hostages.
Jara said he would tell Uribe that a prisoner swap should be negotiated urgently with the rebels. Leftist intellectuals, meanwhile, are hoping the rebel goodwill gesture will prod Uribe to open a dialogue that might end FARC’s decades-long fight.
But Uribe has resisted. His U.S.-backed military has dealt the peasant-based army a series of hobbling blows in recent months. And last year, he put a halt to international mediation efforts.
The rebels kidnapped Jara in July 2001 from a UN vehicle when he was visiting construction sites in Meta, the state he governed.
The former governor was widely liked by fellow hostages, they have said, keeping his mind agile by playing chess and giving English lessons.
FARC still holds at least 22 soldiers and police, some for more than a decade.
Lopez, seized in April 2002 in a daring rebel raid on a provincial assembly, is the last politician believed held by the rebels. Six others were freed early last year and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was rescued in a bloodless ruse in July along with three US military contractors.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS