Colombia's leftist insurgents free four hostages

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Irish Sun

Tuesday 26th February 2008 Issue 1406

Colombia's leftist insurgents free four hostages
Irish Sun
Tuesday 26th February, 2008
(IANS)

Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla group, which has agreed to release some of its hostages following mediation by Venezuela's leftist government, has freed four captives and asked Caracas to pick them up from a forest location, Spain's EFE news agency reported Tuesday.

'I want to announce that we now know with precision the place where the four captives in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are to be delivered to our commander in chief and (Colombian) Senator Piedad Cordoba,' Venezuela's Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said.

Chacin was addressing a press conference along with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro Monday.

Maduro said he had already contacted Colombian authorities to request a suspension of military operations in the area.

The helicopters sent to pick up the hostages will spend no more than two hours on the ground, the ministers said, citing fears of military action by Colombian soldiers or rightist paramilitary groups.




Read more: http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/331372/cs/1/

[Peace Patriot]

1. Very important! Promoting peace in Colombia's 40+ year civil war is one key

to fending off Rumsfeld/Exxon Mobil's plan to isolate, destabilize and topple the elected government of Venezuela. See...(and do read between the lines, cuz he ain't telling the straight story)...

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

I do think that Rumfeld's Oil War II will begin in Bolivia, but his prime target is Venezuela.

I was appalled by Hillary Clinton using the same language as Rumsfeld ("Chavez the dictator") in her foreign policy speech yesterday at GW University. Some diplomacy!

Note: Chavez is not a "dictator." It is Bush, Rumsfeld, Exxon Mobil and collusive Democrats who are the "dictators."

Venezuela borders Colombia--a country fat with billions in Bush/U.S. military aid--and there have already been incursions of Colombian security and rightwing paramilitary forces, and Bush/U.S. "war on drugs" forces, over the Venezuela border. One of the excuses for militarizing Colombia is FARC, even though it is Colombian rightwing forces that have caused most of the suffering and death in the civil war. It is also one of the excuses for putting U.S. boots on the ground to regain global corporate predator control of the Andes oil fields (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina--all closely allied leftist governments).

Thus getting hostages released, and beginning peace talks, is like garlic to vampire Rumsfeld. He hisses as the least whiff of peace, and the Bush Junta has been trying to sabotage this process from the beginning. That Chavez has gotten a second set of hostages released, under these circumstances, is a major achievement and bodes well for a peaceful settlement.