(against Bush ally's wishes) Chavez best hope for Colombia's Betancourt: husband

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Chavez best hope for Colombia's Betancourt: husband
Fri May 2, 2008 6:24pm EDT
By Todd Benson

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is the best hope for successfully negotiating the release of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages held by leftist Colombian guerrillas, her husband said on Friday.

France is spearheading a campaign to restart talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Marxist rebel group holding hundreds of captives, including Betancourt, in secret camps deep in the jungle.

Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary who has expressed sympathies for the FARC, helped negotiate the release of six hostages this year. But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe rejects a formal role in release talks for Chavez, who irked his Colombian counterpart by urging more recognition for the rebels.

"The Colombian government, I think out of pride, doesn't want Chavez to participate," Juan Carlos Lecompte, Betancourt's husband, told Reuters on the sidelines of an environmental conference in Sao Paulo.

"But for us, the relatives of the captives, he is the main hope that we have. We've begged him to keep working for their release and that is what he is doing."



Read more: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAN0235181420080502

[blue sky at night]

1. I vote this post....

for most confusing subject line I have tried to decipher in weeks!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Did reading the context help?

"The Colombian government, I think out of pride, doesn't want Chavez to participate," Juan Carlos Lecompte, Betancourt's husband, told Reuters on the sidelines of an environmental conference in Sao Paulo.

[Joanne98]

3. There's a rumor that Uribe thinks she may run for President if freed.

I don't have a link..

[blue sky at night]

6. hey thanks...

not trying to yank your chain....just remember a lot of us aren't as tuned in to some stuff as others.

[justinaforjustice]

4. More Skewered Reuters Reporting on Chavez, As Usual.

This Reuters article is a good example of the western media's skewed, totally partisan editorializing against President Hugo Chavez:

"Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary who has expressed sympathies for the FARC, helped negotiate the release of six hostages this year. But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe rejects a formal role in release talks for Chavez, who irked his Colombian counterpart by urging more recognition for the rebels."

President Chavez is the democratically elected president of Venezuela, while U.S. ally, President Uribe of Colombia, has now been accused of buying votes to insure his re-election. In the past he has been intimately connected with major drug cartels and paramilitary death squads in Colombia. Hundreds of his supporters have been investigated for collusion with paramilitary groups and drug cartels, many have been convicted of those offense.

Within the last month, a former Colombian "Disputado" (equivalent to a U.S. Congressional Representative) reported in an affidavit that President Uribe bought her vote to pass the law which allowed him to run for re-election. Thus, the legality of his re-election is seriously in question. There are now calls for a national referendum to recall the entire legislature and conduct a new election.

President Uribe originally asked President Chavez to act as an intermediary to the FARC to seek the release of FARC-held hostages. When President Chavez appeared to be on the verge of success in negotiating their release, Uribe abruptly fired him from the job and bombed the area in which the hostages were being gathered for release, setting back the release of any hostages for months.

At the request of family members, Chavez continued to work for the release of the hostages and was successful in getting six released.

When, as part of an international effort to effect the release of Colombia-French politician, Ingrid Betancourt, it appeared that she was about to be released, President Uribe commenced an illegal air attack inside Ecuadorian territory, killing the FARC's key negotiator, Reyes, and thus killing the likelihood of a immediate release of Betancourt. Uribe located Reyes with the help of U.S. surveillance data when Reyes used a satellite phone to talk with an international hostage negotiator.

After killing the FARC negotiators, Uribe claimed to have seized a computer belonging to Reyes which, so he claims, contained documents proving that Chavez had contact with FARC. Of course Chavez had had contact with FARC, Uribe had asked him to mediate with FARC for the hostages' release.

Chavez has unequivocally condemned the taking of civilian hostages and called for their immediate release. He continues to work to free the hostages at the request of the families and the French government, despite being called a FARC sympathizer for doing so. He has also asked for the FARC to be treated as a political movement, not as a terrorist group, if they agree to fore go further hostage-taking.

The U.S. is now using this supposed evidence of President Chavez's contact with the FARC to justify placing Venezuela on its list of terrorist supporting countries, which would subject Venezuela to damaging economic sanctions. One suspects that President Uribe initially asked Chavez to mediate with the FARC in order to obtain "evidence" of his contact with them at the behest of the U.S. government.

The western press has consistently demonized President Chavez and suppressed the facts about Uribe's nefarious connections, thus serving the interests of the Bush-Cheney administration which is actively seeking to topple Chavez's socialist government. Because Chavez refuses to allow the U.S. to determine the future of Venezuela's oil resources, Bush-Cheney wants him gone. They much prefer to spend billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars buying off the crooked Uribe, who will dance to their imperialist tune.

[LaStrega]

5. You're absolutely correct ...

And well put, too.

Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[ronnie624]

8. Very concise and accurate.

Excellent summary.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I agree with your analysis. Uribe set Chavez up, at the instigation of the Bush Junta

and my pick for architect of that treachery is Donald Rumsfeld, who published an op-ed* in the Washington Post the very weekend that Chavez was to get the first two hostages released, after Uribe asked Chavez to negotiate with the FARC--a request that is in the public record, and was lauded by the hostages' families at the time. Rumsfeld mentions this situation in his first paragraph*, but says that Chavez's help with the hostage releases was "not welcome in Colombia," though it had been days before. Someone called Uribe and told him to pull the plug (Rumsfeld?), and the Colombian military then bombed the two hostages' location, driving them back into the jungle on a 20 mile hike, back into captivity (--later reported by the two hostages, after Chavez managed to get them out, despite all this treachery). Or, Uribe had been part of the plot from the very beginning, and issued the request knowing that the plot was to hand Chavez a diplomatic disaster (dead hostages). When Chavez outfoxed them, and got two hostages released, then four more, the Bushites/Uribe then plotted the bombing of the chief FARC hostage negotiator's camp, just inside Ecuador's border, and the contrivance of the FARC laptop "seized" from the bombed campsite, with the so-called "evidence" that Chavez--and also Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador (who was in very advanced negotiations for Betancourt's release)--were giving money to the FARC (Chavez), or getting money from the FARC (Correa), that the FARC were seeking a "dirty bomb," etc., etc. Uribe even wildly claimed that he was going to take Chavez to the World Court for "genocide" (--a charge that no one could even fathom--what the hell was this psycho talking about?--and was soon dropped from Uribe's press releases).

All this was fascist theater for trying to slander and sully two leftist presidents of countries that are members of OPEC, with lots of oil that these presidents are using to bootstrap their large poor populations, who have never benefited from their countries' oil. That is Chavez's and Correa's real crime--not stuffing the pockets of multinational corporate executives and investors at the cost of education, medical care, land reform and other benefits for their people. Their other crime may be that they take the interdiction of the illicit cocaine trade, coming out of Colombia, seriously, and they oppose the U.S.-Bush "war on drugs" because it is egregiously corrupt and totally ineffective. Uribe and his cronies, and their rightwing paramilitary death squads, are deeply involved in the drug trade, and so, more than likely, is the Bush Cartel.

The slander against Chavez and Correa also followed Uribe/Bushite failure to draw Ecuador and Venezuela into a war, over the violation of Ecuador's territory. Correa was furious, and sent military battalions to reinforce his border. Chavez did the same, but then talked Correa out of retaliating in kind. The president of Brazil called Chavez "the great peacemaker" because of this. Chavez clearly smelled a war trap, and pulled his friend and ally Correa back from the precipice. The U.S. was gunning for him. U.S. surveillance and ten 500 lb. U.S. "smart bombs"--and possibly also U.S. aircraft and personnel--were used to blow the FARC camp away, killing Raul Reyes, the FARC hostage negotiator and 24 other people, including several Ecuadoran and Mexican citizens. After the bombing, the Colombian military crossed the border to shoot any survivors. The Ecuadoran military later reported that they found bodies in their pajamas shot in the back. Uribe lied to Rafael Correa that it was "hot pursuit." It was not. Reyes had tried to set up a safe haven (given the Colombian military's rocketing during the first hostage release) just inside Ecuador, for further hostage releases. In killing Reyes and others, the Bushites/Uribe were trying to STOP further hostage releases and the hope for an end to the 40+ year Colombian civil war for which the hostage releases were a first step. Chavez's proposal that the FARC be reclassified as civil war combatants, rather than terrorists, and the creation of a no-fire zone for the safe release of hostages, was obviously a step in that direction.

But neither Uribe nor the Bushites want an end to Colombia's civil war. For Uribe and his pals, it is a gravy train--$5.5 BILLION in Bush-U.S. military aid ostensibly for the "war on drugs"--and an easy means and excuse to slaughter union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, protesters, human rights workers, journalists--anyone who opposes them. As for the Bushites, they love war. Torturing, killing and theft make their day.

---------

*"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

As an antidote to the toxicity from reading Rumsfeld, I recommend www.BoRev.net.

[justinaforjustice]

10. Rumsfeld's Spurious Attack on Venezuelan Democracy.

Thanks for your extremely informative post. I read the Rumsfeld "op ed" to which you linked. Rumsfeld's rantings would be laughable, had not he and the rest of the Bush-Chaney administration wrecked such national and international havoc under the guise of spreading democracy throughout the world.

Rumsfeld writes:

"Today the people of Venezuela face a constitutional referendum, which, if passed, could obliterate the few remaining vestiges of Venezuelan democracy. The world is saying little and doing less as President Hugo Chavez dismantles Venezuela's constitution, silences its independent media and confiscates private property."

That "dictator" Chavez, when he wanted to change the Venezuelan Constitution, held a nation-wide vote on the new provisions. When it failed to pass by less than 2 per cent, Chavez acknowledged its defeat and congratulated the opposition. One of the major provisions of Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms was to strengthen locally elected community counsels so they would have the power and funds to democratically solve their local problems. How undemocratic of him!

Meanwhile, that putative spreader of democracy, George Bush, simply went ahead and, through executive orders and signing statements, unilaterally demolished our U.S. Constitution: surreptitiously revoking the power of our Congress to make the laws and the power of our courts to decide the law. Relying on secret, legally erroneous opinions of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel which falsely told him that he had the power to do virtually anything he wanted under his "war powers", Bush authorized torture and warrant less surveillance of U.S. residents, among other illegal actions, without so much as a single vote by any democratically elected representative.

The Bush-Cheney administration not only silenced our independent media by changing regulations to permit a handful
of Republican-owned corporations to control 90 per cent of the media outlets, but illegally paid journalists to write glowing reports about his education policies and send Bush-Cheney crafted but unattributed videos extolling the success of Bush-Cheney policies to TV stations, to be played as if they were independently written and produced.


But perhaps the most egregious suppression of our independent media came when Bush-Cheney set up retired generals to act as military media analysts, spreading White House produced propaganda in support of their invasion and so-called "progress"in Iraq.

As the New York Times has recently documented, rather than paying cash directly to the generals, they were paid with trips to Iraq and with the inside information about defense contracting decisions which is potentially worth billions to defense contractors. Did I neglect to say that many of the retired generals were simultaneously reading from White HOuse scripts on TV while actively working for defense contracting firms?


As for confiscating private property, the Bush administration has confiscated billions -- if not trillions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars to hand over to their defense contractor and oil industry friends -- by waging an illegal war and conducting a disastrous occupation in Iraq to assure their continued world dominance.

But control over the Middle East's oil resources is not sufficient for Rumsfeld and the Bush-Cheney cartel, they want total dominance over the oil-rich countries in South and Central America as well. Thus, in his article, Rumsfeld calls for the passage of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement and continuing our massive military support for that bastion of democracy, Colombia, a country where its president bought the votes to allow his re-election, where voters are forced to vote for his party under the barrel of a gun, and where thousands of workers have been assassinated for simply wanting to join a union.

I live in the terrible "dictorship" of Venezuela where the Goverment doesn't illegally invade other countries, doesn't kidnap, torture, or illegally surveil or datamine, and where all the votes are counted and have re-countable paper trails. Venezuelans have a constitutional right to join unions and form worker-owned cooperatives, to say nothing of their constitutional rights to health care, education, adequate housing and nutrition, which the government must enforce.

Oh, there is no "no fly" list here either!

The only "dictator" here is the people of Venezuela. The people of the United States would do well to follow suit.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Yup, what a crock from Rumsfeld: If the Venezuela people VOTE FOR lifting

the term limit on the president, that's the end of their democracy!

One of the things that I imagine was lurking in Rumsfeld's mind was their horror of another FDR--who ran for and won FOUR terms in office, and one of whose most memorable lines was, "Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!"

"Organized money" hates Chavez--and he seems to welcome their hatred. His loyalty is with his people.

The anti-term limit amendment was included in a package of 69 amendments, including equal rights for gays and women. That's likely what sank the amendments package--which lost by a hair (50.7% vs. 49.3%). Venezuela is a Catholic country with a particularly rightwing clergy, and the rightwing groups ran ads saying that, if the amendments passed, the government would take children from their mothers. It was just enough to cause 10% of normally pro-Chavez voters to abstain or vote against the amendments. There is no evidence that I've seen that the anti-term limit amendment was why the amendments lost. The only thing I know of that voters and reliable analysts mentioned was voter confusion--too many amendments. (Note: Chavez won his last election by 63% of the vote, and enjoys a 65% to 70% approval rating.)

Venezuelan elections put our own to shame for their transparency. They use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tallied--and they hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes as a check on machine.

Here we use electronic voting run on TRADE SECRET CODE, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Many states do ZERO hand-counting, and even the best states do only 1% (miserably inadequate in a "trade secret" code system). Our voting system is wide open to insider rigging.

That's why Venezuela has a president and national legislature that are pouring the country's oil profits into education and health care for the poor, small business loans, land reform, local and regional infrastructure, encouraging local manufacturing, and many other beneficial programs, and we have a president and congress who have spent all our money on war profiteers and war.

Our peoples--Venezuelans and U.S. citizens--have similar progressive, pro-peace, pro-social justice majorities. They are able to get the will of the people enforced; we are not. We can't even get to square one on reforming our putrid, criminal government. I think that "trade secret" vote counting--although it is not the only thing wrong with our system--is the final barrier put up to fend off the will of the people here. It is critically important that we change this, which is best done at the local/state level, where ordinary people still have some influence.

Rumsfeld should be in jail--not writing op-eds in the Washington Post, and trying to start Oil War II in South America. He is the No. 1 criminal of the Bush Junta, in my opinion. And the reason that he has not been held accountable is "trade secret" vote counting, which not only perpetuated the Bush Junta in 2004, it put a bunch of "Blue Dog" Democrats in Congress in 2006 who support war and war profiteers.

[mikita]

11. tx for the antidote

BoRev.net is great --- had not read it before.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Betancourt was a big critic of the Columbian government and their corruption

before she was taken by the FARC. This was one very charismatic lady. I don't think the Columbian President wants her freed. She's too leftist for his taste and was a popular politician among the common people.