tagged w/ Villavicencio
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A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages, including a young boy, from leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart Monday, as the guerrillas accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
A Venezuelan aviation officer waits as two helicopters prepare to fly to Villavicencio.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe dismissed the claim as a lie by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, instead suggesting the guerrillas could be backing out of the deal brokered by President Hugo Chavez because they don't have the boy hostage.
"The FARC terrorist group doesn't have any excuse. They've fooled Colombia and now they want to fool the international community," Uribe said from the central Colombian city where Venezuela helicopters have been waiting since Friday for word from the guerrillas on where the hostages could be picked up.
He made the shocking suggestion that the guerrillas "don't dare to keep their promises because they don't have the boy, Emmanuel" -- who the FARC announced two weeks ago they'd free along with his mother, Clara Rojas, and former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez.
Uribe said his government had given Venezuela and the international Red Cross coordinating the mission every guarantee that its military would not obstruct the handover, even promising to create a cease-fire corridor to allow the rebels to escort their hostages through the France-sized jungles to the pickup point.
Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and observers from France, Switzerland and four other Latin American nations abandoned Villavicencio on Monday.
"Shame on Colombia, shame on Uribe," Oliver Stone, the American filmmaker, told The Associated Press shortly before boarding one of three Venezuelan jets carrying the observers back to Caracas. Stone, who was invited by Chavez to document the handover, added "the FARC have no motive not to release these hostages."A Venezuelan-led mission to rescue three hostages, including a young boy, from leftist... more
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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."
Oliver Stone, the American filmmaker is jumping at a chance to meet with a group the... more
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