[NYTr] Colombia: FARC Won't Free Hostages, Says Reyes

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Aug 26, 2007
http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKN26406046._CH_.242020070826


Colombia: FARC won't free hostages says Reyes in Venezuela

BUENOS AIRES - Colombia's FARC guerrillas insisted a handover of
hostages must take place in Colombia, after Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez offered an area in his country for talks on kidnap victims,
according to a newspaper interview published on Sunday.

Raul Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, welcomed Chavez's efforts to broker talks on freeing hostages
held by the guerrillas. But he said the rebel group still demands
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe pull troops from an area the size of
New York City for any negotiations to begin.

The FARC has held hundreds of police, soldiers and politicians for
years, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt,
snatched in 2002, and three Americans kidnapped while on a
counter-narcotics mission in 2003.

The interview was published less than a week before Chavez is due to
meet with Uribe in Bogota to discuss how he might facilitate the
exchange of hostages for the release of jailed FARC members in
Colombia's 40-year armed conflict.

"We continue seeking the demilitarization of Pradera and Florida
(regions), and we would ask President Chavez to use his political
weight to contribute to this, which would allow us to sit at the
negotiating table and arrive at an accord to release the prisoners,"
Reyes told Argentine daily newspaper Clarin.

Asked if the FARC would be willing to negotiate in Venezuela, Reyes
said: "Yes. We have no problem engaging in dialogue anywhere, but the
handover of prisoners should be in Colombia."

Reyes also insisted that the three Americans would be released only
after Washington freed two FARC commanders jailed in the United States.

Chavez, the most visible leader of resurgent leftist politics in Latin
America, has promised to act as "an observer and a guarantor" of the
effort to seek a hostage exchange.

U.S. officials have charged Chavez has openly aided the Marxist FARC
rebels. He denies those allegations.