Community | December 30, 2007 | 7 comments

Director Oliver Stone joins hostage rescue team; calls Chavez "a great man"

source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/12/30/stone.colombia/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Image
gallenisme

Oliver Stone, the American filmmaker is jumping at a chance to meet with a group the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization.

Leaving the glamour of Hollywood far behind, Stone arrived in the steamy Colombian city of Villavicencio on Saturday as part of a mission led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to retrieve three hostages held for years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Stone is part of an international delegation expected to fly by helicopter as early as Sunday into the country's eastern jungles, an area the size of France, to collect the captives: former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez, Clara Rojas and her young son Emmanuel, who was fathered by one of her guerrilla captors.

The famous director's presence in this violent country, struggling through its fifth decade of civil conflict, is a worry to his Colombian and Venezuelan guides. They prohibited him from leaving his hotel in Villavicencio, a town rocked in recent years by turf battles between rival drug traffickers and far-right death squads.

Chavez personally invited Stone to join the rescue delegation after the pair, who say they are mutual admirers, met for the first time last week in Caracas.

Dispatching rescue helicopters from Venezuela on Friday, Chavez joked that Stone was President Bush's emissary to the operation, while Stone called Chavez "a great man."
  1. groups:
  2. tags:
    Colombia,  Venezuela,  Hugo Chavez,  Hostages,  4 more
  3.     
    |

7 comments // Director Oliver Stone joins hostage rescue team; calls Chavez "a great man"

  • xman109
    • 0
      xman109  

    • Oiver Stone's assertion that Hugo Chavez is great man is not only ignorant, but also absurd. Chavez has curtailed freedom of speech and eliminated the judiciary's independence in Venezuela. While Colombia has a strong economy growing above 6% and unemployment in the single digits, Venuzuela now has the hemisphere's highest inflation rate and due to Chavez's imposed price controls, the country has food shortages on even the most basic foods such as milk, meat, and sugar. Caracas, Venezulas's capital, is now filled with crime - even garbage goes uncollected! If Chavez is the type of leader Oliver Stone wants, then maybe he should leave his cozy little mansion in the US and move to caracas.

    • 4 years ago
  • mcamargo
  • pogomedia
    • 0
      pogomedia  

    • Good for Mr. Stone.
      How I wish I was there ...
      Don´t believe all what corporate media says about Chavez, too many false notions and misconceptions.
      Long live democracy and the free media.

    • 4 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • Looks to me like Oliver Stone is looking for a way to keep his own name afloat. I don't think Chavez is a great man either. Was he in Bali looking to stop climate change that is effecting his own country? No, he still deals in the one fossil fuel contributing most to it. He is in this for himself just like all the other politicians.

    • 4 years ago
  • mjsmith11
    • 0
      mjsmith11  

    • If you think that replacing democracy with communism is a good idea Oliver Stone would be correct. I disagree with Mr. Stone. I think Hugo Chavez is power hungry "wannabe dictator". I think Oliver Stone is a typical "Hollywood Liberal".

    • 4 years ago
  • joshuaheller
  • phillyharper
    • 0
      phillyharper  

    • It's a shame that Stone looks clinically dead in that picture, but aside from that I have every respect for him. Any country named as a terrorist state by the US requires immediate and undying skepticism before the the warning is heeded.

      Outside of the web of lies and madness spun by the administration there is nothing significant about his move to help Chavez. Our very own Ken Livingstone has spent time with Chavez and Venezuala are now trading their oil in return for London's expertise on traffic management.

      Eccentric, yes, terrorist, no.

    • 4 years ago
from the community

top videos