Chavez coup as captive pair freed

VENEZUELA'S president, Hugo Chavez, finally managed to secure the release of two hostages from the hands of Colombian guerrillas yesterday, in a public relations coup that will allow him to present himself as potential peacemaker in his neighbour's 44-year civil conflict.

It is the most important hostage release in the conflict since 2001, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) freed some 300 soldiers and police officers.

In their latest gesture, the rebels delivered Clara Rojas and the former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez into the care of Mr Chavez.

Two Venezuelan helicopters, bearing the symbol of the International Red Cross, flew to the remote Colombian jungle province of Guaviare, where they made a rendezvous with a guerrilla column holding the two women, who were captured more than six years ago.

As news came through that they had been liberated, Mr Chavez said: "Venezuela will continue opening the way for peace in Colombia. We are ready, and in contact, and we hope the Colombian government understands. I'm sure they will understand.

"The world wants peace for Colombia."

The two women were among 45 hostages the Farc rebels were holding and want to exchange for hundreds of their comrades in prison. Alvaro Uribe, the Oxford-educated Colombian president, has always opposed the prisoner exchange, insisting it would simply encourage the Farc to kidnap more hostages and undermine the security forces that work so hard to capture rebels.

However, with this release Mr Uribe will be under massive pressure, not just from Mr Chavez, who had his role as mediator cancelled by his Colombian counterpart last November, but from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who has made the release of French hostage Ingrid Betancourt, a foreign policy priority. Also in the background is Washington, which is keen to see the return of three of its intelligence operatives, whose spy plane crash-landed in the rebel-dominated province of Caqueta, literally landing in the laps of a Farc guerrilla patrol in 2002.

Roman Ortiz, an analyst with the Bogota think-tank Foundation Ideas for Peace, said: "With this liberation, the Farc have once more put the issue of the prisoner exchange on to the national and international agenda, and the pressure mounts on President Uribe to deliver the safe haven the Colombian guerrillas want."

The Farc are demanding a large demilitarised zone in the south-west of the country as a venue for negotiations over the fate of the remaining hostages. Mr Uribe has previously ruled that out, insisting he will not "cede one inch of Colombian territory to terrorists".

It had been feared the hostages would never be freed after the rebels claimed at the end of December that liberation was impossible due to army operations.

But the truth was the Farc had lost one of the hostages it planned to release – Emmanuel Rojas, the three-year-old son that Clara had with one of her guerrilla captors. The boy was found in a foster home in Bogota and DNA tests conducted by the attorney-general's office and confirmed yesterday by a Spanish laboratory proved beyond doubt he is Clara Rojas's son.

The Farc is hoping the latest two liberations will restore its battered credibility after it was proven it had lied about Emmanuel.

What has touched war-weary Colombians is the human side of this story, the suffering of 43 people held for up to a decade by the Farc.

Loyalty to friend led to 6 years in captivity

CLARA Rojas, 44, was standing next to her friend, the then presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, when guerrillas seized them at a checkpoint in the southern province of Caquetá. She said she would not be separated from her friend, even though the Farc had no plans or instructions to take her.

In the past six years, she may have regretted that loyalty, after endless jungle marches, being chained to trees at night, surviving without the most basic facilities and battling tropical diseases that bring down even the hardiest rebels.

She had a child, Emmanuel, with one of her captors, only to see him taken from her. Social services found him, registered under the name Juan David in a hospital in Guaviare, malnourished, injured and sick.

Two years ago, they registered him as an abused child and took him to Bogota, where he was placed in a foster home, from which he will soon be delivered into the arms of a mother he will not recognise or know.

Consuelo Gonzalez, 57, was snatched as she travelled along a road in the Farc-dominated province of Huila in September 2001. She will now find out that her husband is dead and that she has a granddaughter. Her daughter, Patricia, was last night waiting for her in Caracas.