Colombia's FARC Seeks Foreign Monitors on Hostages (Update1)

[struggle4progress]

By Helen Murphy

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Colombia’s biggest rebel group demanded that international representatives monitor its release of six hostages, saying it doesn’t trust the government to live up to its security commitments.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in a letter from the “mountains of Colombia” to mediator and opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba, called for a “brother” country to oversee the release. The FARC, as the drug-funded group is known, said Dec. 21 it would liberate a former governor and lawmaker and four members of the Colombian armed forces.

The FARC accepted the government’s proposal to have the International Red Cross facilitate the release, while saying the arrangement didn’t guaranty security given government’s “abuses” of the organization’s name, the letter, dated Dec. 30, stated. On July 2, Colombian troops rescued 15 hostages in an operation that used the internationally recognized Red Cross emblem to trick the rebels.

The proposed handover, a year after the FARC made its first unilateral captive release, may signal an effort by the group to stay in the public spotlight. FARC leader Alfonso Cano acknowledged in December that the group has lost popular support following a series of military defeats that cut its ranks in half and killed many of its leaders ... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a4TxiSUtgg2I&refer=latin_america

[struggle4progress]

1. Colombia rebels eye foreign role in hostage pickup

... The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia wants someone from "a brother country or the international community" to be present when it hands over a former governor, a regional lawmaker, three police officers and a soldier.

The FARC did not specify a country or give a date for the release in a statement distributed Wednesday.

President Alvaro Uribe has said only the International Committee of the Red Cross may participate, and intervention by foreign governments is not welcome ... http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/07/news/LT-Colombia-Hostages.php

[Judi Lynn]

2. In the last part of last year, they sent someone bringing proof the hostages due to be released

were alive, and the emissary was seized, hauled away, then a date was set to deliver the two women, with Uribe's promise they would be safe to travel, and they were heavily bombarded, sending them running for their lives back many, many miles to their point of origin. Then, when the hostage negotiator was across the border, due to meet the French and Spanish or Swiss officials involved in the impending hostage release, he was slaughtered, instead.

Why the #### should they trust this creepy little Uribe, anyway? They already know he's an inveterate liar.

[Bacchus39]

3. why should the Colombian government trust the FARC?

they are the ones who take hostages.