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US can help, says Chavez
26/09/2007 08:01 - (SA)
Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that the United States could help efforts to get Colombia's goverment and Marxist rebels to agree on an exchange of hostages for guerrilla prisoners.
Chavez, a mediator in Colombia's hostage crisis, has an adversarial relationship with the United States, but he said he hoped US President George W Bush offer assistance.
"The government of the United States can help, a lot," Chavez said during a meeting with the families of three Americans held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for more than four years.
US State Department contractors Thomas Howe, Keith Stannsen and Marc Gonsalvez were seized in Colombia in February 2003 after the rebels shot down their plane in the jungle during an anti-drug mission.
The rebels want the Colombian government to release 500 FARC prisoners in exchange for 45 hostages, including the Americans and Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a top US ally, has so far rejected FARC demands that he create a demilitarised zone to negotiate a deal.
Chavez said he expected French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has taken a personal interest in winning Betancourt's release, to discuss the issue as he meets with US President George W Bush at the United Nations.
'Good friends' in the United States
"Hopefully President Bush can help," said Chavez, who has lambasted the US president in the past, even calling him at one time the devil. "Hopefully we can count on US institutions.
The leftist leader said he had "good friends" in the United States who could help, including former US president Jimmy Carter, US actors Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey, and US film director Oliver Stone, who has offered to do a documentary with the families of the US hostages.
Speaking to the hostages' parents, Chavez said: "A social force could emerge in the United States that could help a lot so that you can hug your sons again."
The meeting in Caracas was also attended by another mediator in the hostage stand-off, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has met with rebel leaders.
Cordoba delivered to Chavez a new letter from FARC number two Raul Reyes in which he reiterates his readiness to meet with the Venezuelan president in Caracas on October 8.
Chavez said the would meet with Uribe after his talks with Reyes. He also confirmed that he would meet with Sarkozy in Paris next month to discuss the fate of the hostages.
"Anyone who can help solve this drama is welcome," Sarkozy told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "His (Chavez's) intervention is welcome."
Relatives of the US hostages thanked Chavez for his mediation.
"Personally, it is the first moment in which I have hope in years," Howe's father told Chavez.
"Thank you so much for your assistance Mr President," Howe's mother said.
- AFP
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