Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez greets
supporters during a meeting with PSUV United Socialist Party members in
Maracaibo June 7, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo
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CARACAS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez Sunday urged the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to
unilaterally free all its hostages and end the decades of armed conflict in
Colombia.
Nothing justified the presence of armed movements in
Latin America, Chavez said at a diplomatic gathering in the northwest state of
Falcon attended by Chinese and Iranian ambassadors to Venezuela.
"At this point a guerilla movement is out of place in
Latin America," Chavez said, adding that it was time for FARC to free all the
hostages they keep in Colombia's mountains.
"It would be a great humanitarian gesture in exchange
for nothing," Chavez said.
"FARC should know that it has become an excuse for
the United States to threaten all Latin America, and FARC provides the perfect
excuse for saying there are terrorist groups in Latin America," he said.
The Venezuelan president said that an eventual
release of the hostages would be the first step to ending internal violence and
creating the conditions for a peace process in Colombia.
He urged the new FARC commander "Alfonso Cano" who
replaced founder Manuel Marulanda after he died from a heart attack on March 26,
to free all the hostages, who include the sick, the elderly, women and former
government soldiers.
Chavez also proposed international mediation
involving Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Spain, Portugal and perhaps the
Vatican, in addition to intervention from the Organization of American States
(OAS).
Since September 2007, Chavez has mediated with FARC,
trying to reach a deal for a hostage swap between some 40 hostages and about 500
FARC rebels jailed by Colombia.
Early this year, FARC released six hostages. Chavez
said he lost contact with the rebel group following a Colombian raid on a FARC
camp in Ecuadorian territory where FARC's No.2 commander RaulReyes was killed.
Recently FARC has lost several top leaders in
addition to Marulanda, who was believed to have been in his late 70s, and Reyes.
Analysts say this provided an unprecedented opportunity for the hostage release.
FARC now holds 750 hostages, including 39
high-profile hostages.
BOGOTA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Around 300 Colombian peasants
from the department of Antioquia fled their hometown Thursday following clashes
between government forces and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
guerillas, government officials said Thursday.
Victor Perlaza, mayor of the municipality of
Zaragoza, said the affected people are from nearby Palotal, where the clashes
took place. Full story
BOGOTA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Colombian Foreign Minister
Fernando Araujo and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro agreed Mondayto
rebuild mutual trust and improve bilateral ties between the two neighbors, which
have been rather tense in recent months.
Araujo and Maduro met Monday in Medellin, the
second-largest city in Colombia, in the framework of the 38th regular session of
the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), which runs
through June 3. Full story
BOGOTA, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Colombian police arrested two
leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel
group in the country, in operations in the northwest and east of the country
Thursday, officials said.
Miguel Gaviria Fontalvo, better known as "Jader," was
arrested in the northwestern city of Medellin. Full story
