By IANS
Montevideo(Uruguay) : Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has confirmed he had received a communiqué from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that the rebel group has offered to release three of its hostages and hand them over to him or anyone nominated by him to receive them.
Talking to reporters Tuesday after the close of the Mercosur summit in this capital city of Uruguay, Chavez said, “It seems to me that it’s a good Christmas present, most of all for the families of these people,” Spain’s EFE news agency reported Wednesday.
The FARC said earlier Tuesday that it would release Clara Rojas, the running mate of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, along with her son she gave birth to in her captivity and former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo.
Rojas was kidnapped Feb 23, 2002, along with Betancourt, a dual Colombian-French citizen, when they were driving to San Vicente del Caguan, a town in the southern province of Caqueta, where they were scheduled to attend a political meeting.
Meanwhile, former legislator Gonzalez has been in the captivity of the FARC since Sep 10, 2001, when she was kidnapped while travelling along a highway from Pitalito, a town in the southern province of Huila.
“The order to free them has already been sent,” said the announcement by the FARC, which is signed by the “Secretariat” or the central command of the organization, the Cuban state news agency said.
Chavez also said in remarks directed at FARC leader Manuel Marulanda that he had not lost hope of achieving the release of all the hostages held by the rebels in exchange for some 500 imprisoned guerrillas.
Relatives and French support groups for Betancourt hailed the report that the FARC will release the three hostages as “good news.”
Ingrid Betancourt is one of the 45 hostages deemed “exchangeable” by the FARC for hundreds of rebels jailed in Colombia and the United States. Some of the captives have been held for as many as 10 years by the rebel group.
Until last month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez served as a mediator to broker a prisoner exchange, but Colombian President Alvaro Uribe abruptly terminated the mediation mission Nov 21, claiming Chavez had violated the understanding they had and accusing him of promoting terrorism and setting the region on “fire.”
The seven-point FARC communiqué reiterated its demand that the accord be negotiated in a demilitarised zone containing the towns of Florida and Pradera some 50 km east of Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca province, a stance that is not acceptable to Uribe.
Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency. The FARC is governed by a secretariat, led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda (popularly known as “Tirofijo”) and six others, including senior military commander Jorge Briceno. The FARC is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts.