No more hostage releases
2008-03-20 13:55
Bogota - A left-wing Colombian senator who helped broker the releases of six hostages held by Marxist rebels this year said he does not expect more liberations under conservative President Alvaro Uribe.
Senator Piedad Cordoba told local television that government military actions, such as the March 1 bombing of a rebel camp in Ecuador that killed No. 2 rebel leader Raul Reyes, have tamped down chances of more releases.
"I do not think there will be more liberations," she told CMI news.
The rebels hold hundreds of hostages including three US defence contractors captured in 2003 and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, snatched the year before.
The government and the guerrillas have been deadlocked over conditions for swapping dozens of high-profile hostages for rebels held in government jails.
Diplomatic crisis
Despite hard lobbying for a hostage exchange by the families of kidnap victims and the French government, Cordoba said a deal is unlikely.
"The country should know this now," she told CMI.
Cordoba has repeatedly called on White House ally Uribe to be more flexible in his approach to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been fighting a communist insurgency since the 1960s.
The popularity of Uribe, whose father was killed more than 25 years ago in a botched FARC kidnapping, rose to a record 82% in a Gallup poll taken after Reyes' death.
But Cordoba is widely distrusted in this Andean country for her statements against the government and her close ties to leftist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has helped negotiate the release of FARC hostages.
The Gallup poll showed 69% of Colombians have a negative opinion of Cordoba.
The killing of FARC commander Reyes on Ecuadorean ground sparked a short-lived diplomatic crisis in the region.
His death marked the first ever hit against a member of the FARC's seven-man governing body.