Colombia: Hostage Talks "Still Alive," Despite Diplomatic Crisis

The FARC calls in European envoys to help maintain negotiations for more hostage swaps. Hostage Ingrid Betancourt is very ill, but her husband is “very happy that the FARC have maintained the same position with respect to the release of the hostages, and that they have not taken reprisals against them” because of Reyes’ death.

The Colombian military had been tracking Reyes for months, and during the attack, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe stayed up the whole night following the airstrike play by play.

In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa said that Colombian forces entered much farther into his country than Colombian officials admit, and that some of the bodies found “had bullet holes in their back”, calling the event a “massacre”.

European envoys met over the weekend with members of the FARC rebel group’s central leadership to discuss how to move ahead in the efforts to negotiate a humanitarian exchange aimed at securing the release of Ingrid Betancourt and the rest of the hostages held in the jungle by the guerrillas.

“The negotiations are alive. Nothing has changed. Or everything has changed, except the negotiations,” a European source told IPS, on condition of anonymity.

The European facilitators were summoned by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) leadership immediately following the news that Colombian troops had killed Raul Reyes, the head of the insurgent group’s international commission, who was in regular contact with the countries — France, Switzerland and Spain — that are facilitating talks on an exchange of hostages for imprisoned guerrillas.

Posted by charlesmostoller
--Más vale morir de pie, que mendigar de rodillas--