Betancourt's mother criticizes Colombian government for not negotiating on hostages

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Betancourt's mother criticizes Colombian government for not negotiating on hostages

2008-02-05 20:10:52 -

ROME (AP) - The mother of Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt called for a change of leadership in her country on Tuesday, criticizing the government for refusing to negotiate with leftist guerrillas holding her daughter and hundreds more.

Speaking on the eve of a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, Yolanda Pulecio said she would ask the pontiff to pray for a change of government in Colombia and for the release of her daughter, a former presidential candidate kidnapped by the rebels in 2002.

«God wants the government to change; this is the miracle that I will ask for. Likewise, I will ask another miracle of the guerrillas,» Pulecio said. «I believe that the pope is going to help me ask God to change this situation.

Pulecio, who spoke at a joint news conference with Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, said she had received more support from countries in Europe and Latin America than from the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.



Read more: http://www.pr-inside.com/print422940.htm

[Bacchus39]

1. the FARC can release her daughter at any time

n/t

[fascisthunter]

2. Yeah... Don't Give Columbia Crap... It's all FARC's Fault

it's not like Columbia could do something to save her.... or maybe... he could....

[Bacchus39]

3. yeah it is the FARC's fault. they kidnapped her. hello!!!

n/t

[fascisthunter]

4. And Columbia Does Nothing about It

Maybe Chavez will have to step in again

[Bacchus39]

7. absolutely, the Colombian government has agreed again to permit Ven authorities

to accept the hostages. they can release Betancourt to them. actually, they can release her right now, to anyone.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Uribe can release the war on the poor of Colombia at any time, as well.

Uribe can step down from the Presidency. He shouldn't be there.

U.S. Department of Defense records from 1991 indicate he was a dirty Senator, in complete connection to Pablo Escobar, doing dirty legislation to keep drug people from being extradited.

It's easy to be prissy and pompous when it's assumed no one knows the truth.

[Peace Patriot]

6. But they're not going to, not with Donald Rumsfeld's and Alvaro Uribe's

massive, U.S. taxpayer funded firepower and brutality, which has failed to finish FARC off for over 30 years now, with many hostages languishing in the jungles--and thousands of non-combatants getting tortured and killed by the Colombian security forces and associated rightwing paramilitaries, who use the the excuse of FARC and the failed "war on drugs" to rid Colombia of union organizers, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists.

So, what do you do? More killing? More draining of our non-existent tax dollars from our war profiteer-looted treasury?

You never say, Bacchus39. You seem to be against negotiating release of hostages, especially if the credit goes to Hugo Chavez. And you seem to be against a negotiated peace settlement of Colombia's decades-long civil war.

What's your solution?

[Bacchus39]

8. no, I'm saying the FARC deserves no "credit" nor really does Chavez

because all the FARC says is they will release the hostages to Chavez or his rep. it has nothing to do with negotiations.

the reason they deserve no credit is because they are the ones who took the hostages in the first place. they can simply let them go, comprendes?

[Peace Patriot]

9. No credit to Chavez? Then why do the hostages' families credit him? And why

did the president of France and others ask him to continue his efforts. They thanked him, and asked him to continue, because he persisted, in the face of Bush Junta orders to Uribe to stop the negotiations, and got the first two hostages released, despite every Bushite/Uribe effort to sabotage that release, including Uribe calling it off at the last minute, using a lame excuse, then using his advantage to arrest three of the FARC negotiators who were on route to Caracas with "proof of life" documentation (the first step in hostage release negotiations), got hold of the "proof of life" and tried to claim credit for it. The hostages' families quickly contradicted that, and credited Chavez. Uribe then "somehow" got wind of where a child hostage--housed in a foster care home--was located (from the "proof of life" docs?), and used THAT to issue the absurd charge that both FARC andChavez were lying that FARC had custody of the child and could and would release him.

You just don't do that in a hostage negotiation--make wild charges of lying, and show bad faith by starting then suddenly stopping a negotiation and arresting curriers. You are putting the hostages' lives in great danger. And the fact that Uribe behaved this way tells me that neither he nor his puppetmasters in Washington give a crap for the lives of these hostages. The hostages are just pawns in their global corporate war game. And what a disgusting, disreputable, murdering lot they are--the Bush Junta and their fascist buds in Colombia!

Betancourt's mother understands perfectly well what happened, and how duplicitous and ill-intentioned the Uribe government is. That's why she's calling for--and praying for--a change of government in Colombia. Colombia needs a government that, a) severs its ties to the Bushites and its dependence on massive U.S. military aid, and b) wants peace.

As Chavez has clearly shown, there are leaders in South America who will take the time and trouble and personal risk to bring about a peaceful settlement of Colombia's 30+ year civil war: Chavez in Venezuela (the first to make progress), also Cristina Fernandez Kirchner in Argentina, who pledged to help with this in her inaugural address (she is a friend and ally of Chavez), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (borders Colombia, threat of this war spilling over the border; friend and ally of Chavez), Evo Morales in Bolivia (where Colombian rightwing forces may be trying to help the local rightwing split the country in two, so the rich get to control the big gas reserves; Morales also a friend and ally of Chavez), Lula da Silva in Brazil (friend and ally of Chavez; also borders Colombia), and others.

Gee, Chavez has LOTS of friends and allies in South America. And Uribe has almost none. Chavez and his friends and allies want peace. Uribe and the Colombian military don't want peace--they are into U.S. military booty, lots of it. They need to keep the war going.

This is not a matter of "crediting" FARC with hostage releases. It is a matter of how to bring about peace. And the peace process is starting, and must start, with release of hostages.

As to credit, Chavez deserves credit in this situation--as all honest parties of interest have stated publicly. It is the Bush Junta and Uribe who want to deny him credit, and wanted to stop him. That's why the Bush USAID/NED and the CIA have funded and organized anti-FARC demonstrations this week, in Colombia and among Colombians in other countries. They want to grab headlines away from Chavez, and the prospects for peace. They want to turn the tide away from peace back toward hatred, war and boondoggle military expenditures. The dirty rat bastards--using what may be a sincere desire for peace in some of the protesters to make more war! Really, it makes me want to puke. I see through them, and I see their evil intentions. And I don't see how anyone who has followed these murderous war profiteers through their war on Iraq can trust them now, or trust their puppet Uribe, or believe any of the spin and disinformation they are putting out.

[Judi Lynn]

10. They're trying to twist the reality so those who say they hope for peace will have to publicly back

the government which employs death squads, genocide, torture, forcing rural citizens to flee from their homes into a constant homeless state, even hiding in bordering countries, creating the SECOND LARGEST HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS beyond the Sudan, seizing their property, selling it to multinationals, and slave labor with only death ahead for any workers who hope to improve their desperate conditions. DU'ers only have to do the slightest research to uncover recent trials involving US companies like Drummond Coal, and Chiquita Banana to see they've been doing heavy business with the death squads, and getting the benefits of murdered union organizers who won't be working to get help for their brethern, sisters any longer, some shot in their own front door. Some tortured to death.

The Colombian elite would do all this to their countrymen for the right to live as nasty little emperors in a land which has been stolen from others.