Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA: Jail the Messenger

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Dec 7 2007 (IPS) - The treatment given to messengers has sparked wars or has been seen as a sign of political will and mutual trust and confidence.

The arrest and imprisonment of two young women carrying evidence showing that at least 17 of the 45 hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas are still alive could place an insurmountable roadblock in the path forged by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, in his efforts to broker an agreement for an exchange of hostages for imprisoned rebels.

After the messengers were arrested, FARC commander Manuel “Marulanda himself said no more proof of life would be provided,” Carlos Lozano, director of the Communist Party weekly publication Voz, told IPS. Lozano is closely familiar with the talks on a possible swap of 45 hostages for 400 or 500 jailed insurgents.

But IPS found out that the French government, which has played a very active role in pushing for a hostage-prisoner exchange and is in direct contact with the FARC, is expecting to receive evidence showing that the rest of the hostages are also alive.

The two women, who were arrested Nov. 29 in the Colombian capital, were threatened with extradition to the United States by three agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who visited the prison to talk to them Tuesday, one of the women’s lawyers told IPS exclusively.

Cindy Tumay, 21, and Adriana Vega, 29, were forced by the director of the El Buen Pastor women’s prison in Bogotá, Jenny Morantes, to meet three foreigners, who identified themselves as FBI agents, in her office after hours. There was no legal basis for the meeting.

Only one of the three men spoke Spanish to the women, while he spoke English with his companions, Vega’s lawyer, Geminiano Méndez, told IPS.

The agents told the two women that they were interested in the release of the three U.S. citizens, Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves, who were captured by the leftist FARC in February 2003 while working as military contractors for the Washington-financed counterinsurgency Plan Colombia.

They first said they wanted to ask the two women “a few questions” about how they were captured, to which Vega responded that she would not answer any questions unless her lawyer was present.

“After that, the decent treatment ended,” said the attorney, whose law practice had employed Vega in the past as a secretary.

The agents told Vega and Tumay not to forget that two FARC members – “Simón Trinidad” and “Sonia” – had already been extradited to the United States, and that “with the approval” of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, they could both find themselves in a U.S. prison “in eight months.”

According to Méndez, the FBI agent added that the women might as well start saying good-bye to their friends, while remarking that “the prisons there are very cold, as ‘Sonia’ will tell you soon enough.”

Sonia is serving a 16-year sentence in a prison in the state of Texas on drug trafficking charges.

The FBI agents said Vega and Tumay were in a very complicated position, and told them that if they decided to talk, they should let the U.S. Embassy know through their attorneys or the prison directors.

The talk lasted no more than 20 minutes, and took place in the presence of the director of the prison, said the lawyer, who announced that he would ask Morantes, through the right to petition, “who authorised the visit” and “based on what legal provision” was it held.

The day after their arrest, the two women were submitted to a judicial hearing that was held in secret for “national security reasons,” as the authorities reported.

A man who was arrested along with the two women apparently was serving as a guide in Bogotá for Tumay, who carried the package containing solid evidence that 17 hostages are alive from the southern department (province) of Guaviare.

The two women, who are in preventive detention and have declared themselves innocent of the charges of kidnapping and “rebellion”, are being investigated by the Attorney-General’s Office.

Vega said humanitarian concerns led her to take part in the chain set up to deliver the videos and letters to Venezuelan President Chávez, who had been officially accepted by Uribe as a mediator of a hostage-prisoner swap.

Lozano said the incident involving FBI agents is a “serious and flagrant violation of our national sovereignty, which shows the fragility of our territory and our dignity. I believe that these gentlemen are doing whatever they please in Colombia because the national government allows them to do so.”

In the journalist’s view, “they did the same thing with guerrilla fighter ‘Simón Trinidad’. He agreed to talk to them under the condition that no notes would be taken and that the off-the-record conversation would not be taped. But many of the things that were discussed ended up being used in the trial against him.”

“Simón Trinidad”, whose real name is Ricardo Palmera, was arrested in Quito, Ecuador in January 2004 while representing the FARC in negotiations on a hostage-prisoner swap. He was later extradited to the United States.

President Chávez agreed to take part in the talks at the request of the hostages’ families, which was officially relayed by Colombian opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba after Uribe appointed her as “facilitator” of an agreement on Aug. 15.

But Uribe unexpectedly put an end to Córdoba and Chávez’s efforts on Nov. 21, without prior warning to the Venezuelan leader, even though the two presidents had agreed that they would talk before any such decision was made.

In response, Chávez angrily “froze” relations between the two countries and recalled Venezuela’s ambassador to Caracas for consultations.

On Dec. 1, Chávez confirmed in a press conference that at least one of the two women who were arrested formed part of the humanitarian mission to deliver the videos and letters proving that the hostages were still alive.

“The ‘proof of life’ was on its way to Caracas and I was going to send it to (French President) Sarkozy and make it public as part of what I had required of the FARC, in the name of the families and the governments of Colombia and France,” said Chávez.

“But they intercepted it; they captured the messengers,” he added.

For that reason, Chávez showed up empty-handed at his Nov. 20 meeting with Sarkozy in France.

The evidence that the hostages are alive was also demanded by an influential group of Democratic lawmakers in the U.S.

The confiscation of the videos and letters showing proof of life was not reported to the hostages’ families, who learned about them from the media.

At Chávez’s urging, FARC chief Marulanda had ordered the gathering of such evidence. The documents seized along with Vega and Tumay had been collected on Oct. 23-25.

The images of the hostages and the letters to their families have moved the entire world, said Sarkozy Thursday in a televised message to Marulanda, who he called on to release, before Christmas, French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt, the highest-profile hostage held by the FARC.

The former Colombian presidential candidate, who has been held captive in the jungle for nearly six years, is seen in one of the videos, looking gaunt and gazing listlessly down at the ground.

This week, Uribe offered lighter charges and cash rewards to the hostages’ guards, if they would turn over the captives and abandon the armed struggle. He presented a common kidnapping case, involving a four-year-old child, as the new policy’s first success story.

Uribe also announced Friday that he would accept the FARC’s demand to create a demilitarised zone for hostage talks, under the condition that it be 150 square km in size, that it be located in a rural area, and that it contain no military or police posts that would have to be withdrawn, and preferably no civilian population, or very few inhabitants at the most.

The talks would take place in the presence of international observers, and the negotiators would not be armed, he added.

But shortly after the president’s announcement, Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the area would only be cleared of government security forces for 30 days.

While analysts are now saying that the ball is in the FARC’s court, the fate of the two messengers would appear to be a detail that should not simply be forgotten.