CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered on Wednesday to send aircraft to pick up three hostages held by Colombia's leftist guerrillas, including a child born in captivity.
By Frank Jack Daniel
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered on Wednesday to send aircraft to pick up three hostages held by Colombia's leftist guerrillas, including a child born in captivity.
"The only thing we need is authorization from the Colombian government," Chavez told reporters in the Venezuelan capital. "We hope they will cooperate with us."
Colombia's rebels have offered to free Clara Rojas, captured during her 2002 vice presidential campaign, and her young son Emmanuel, fathered by one of her guerrilla captors, as well as former lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez, who was kidnapped in 2001.
!ADVERTISEMENT!The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is deadlocked with Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe over conditions under which rebel captives should be freed.
Chavez was told by Uribe last month to stay out of FARC hostage negotiations but the leftist anti-American firebrand has continued to talk with the rebel army, which says it wants to turn the hostages over to him or someone authorized by him.
Rojas's brother Ivan Rojas told reporters in Colombia that he supports Chavez's plan. "We are very optimistic that this will turn out well," he said.
The release of the three hostages could help set the stage for an exchange of other kidnap victims, including three U.S. contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, for Colombian guerrillas locked in government jails.
Betancourt was a presidential candidate in 2002 when she and Rojas, her running mate, were captured by FARC rebels.
The three Americans -- Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves -- were captured during a mission to spot illicit coca crops in 2003.
Uribe, popular for his U.S.-backed crackdown on the rebels, has offered to designate a limited safe area to swap these and dozens of other high-profile captives for jailed rebels.
But the FARC insists he pull troops from a larger zone of its choosing to facilitate an exchange. The rebels want to enter that zone armed, which Uribe says he will not allow.
The FARC has been pushed onto the defensive by Uribe but it still controls wide rural areas and holds about 750 hostages for ransom and political leverage.
(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel, writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Kieran Murray)
