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Colombian rebels demand a major exchange of prisoners

Friday, April 4th 2008 - 21:00 UTC
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A leader of Colombia's rebel group FARC ruled out the release of a high profile seriously ill French-Colombian hostage, (“she will remain in our camps”), unless there is a major prisoner exchange. The statement cast doubt on a French humanitarian mission sent to treat her.

A French government jet landed at an air base in Bogota on Thursday carrying two diplomats and two doctors, said Colombia's Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Freddy Padilla. But Padilla said the French team, which hopes at least to offer medical treatment to hostage Ingrid Betancourt, doesn't even know where she is, according to press reports from Colombia. Rodrigo Granda, foreign relations chief of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the country's main rebel group, suggested the French had no deal for the release of Betancourt, 46, who was kidnapped while running for president of Colombia six years ago and has been reported as seriously ill. "Only as a result of a prisoner exchange will those who are held captive in our camps go free" Granda said in a communiqué posted Thursday on the website friendly with the Marxist oriented, cocaine funded FARC. The rebel group has insisted that as part of any prisoner exchange, two FARC leaders imprisoned in the United States must also be let go. They are Nayibe "Sonia" Rojas, convicted last year in a U.S. court of exporting cocaine, and Ricardo Palmera - whose nom de guerre is Simon Trinidad - who was convicted in a hostage-taking conspiracy. FARC, which is also holding three US contractors who were kidnapped in 2003 when their plane went down in southern Colombia, wants hundreds of rebels jailed in Colombia freed as part of the swap. Betancourt's plight has taken on added urgency since another hostage who spent months with her was released in February, saying she has hepatitis B, malaria and a tropical parasitic skin ailment. Colombian news media reported this week that she is at death's door, giving few details and citing unidentified peasants who say they have seen her. French officials in Bogota and Paris refused to comment Thursday on the mission. "Discretion is required in this type of case" said French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe vowed to make "all possible efforts" to help win Betancourt's release. But even as the team's Falcon 500 jet waited at a Bogota air base, a website sympathetic to the FARC suggested the mission would fail. "Where would the delegates of the president of France ... go? Where would the helicopters land? Who would give the coordinates?" a posting on the site read. In France, the risks of mounting the mission for French President Nicolas Sarkozy appear minimal. Betancourt's cause is so popular in France that the greater risk for the French president would be to let her die without attempting every possible maneuver to free her. Sarkozy and Betancourt's son have said she is dying, but haven't said how they know that. Some Colombian commentators have speculated they are exaggerating the state of her health to pressure the FARC. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez the only leader to have successfully brokered recent releases of other FARC hostages is not involved in this mission. Spain and Switzerland support the mission, but their roles are not clear. The mission resembled one the French mounted in 2003, although the earlier effort was secret. Then-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had been Betancourt's teacher in France, sent a Hercules C-130 plane to Brazil to fetch Betancourt amid word that she was ill and the rebels would free her. The mission ended in failure, and the FARC said it had never planned to release the dual nationality Ingrid.

Categories: Politics, Latin America.

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