Colombia Rebels Free Kidnapped Lawmaker
BOGOTA, Sept. 12, 2000 -- Seeking to jump-start peacetalks with the government, Colombia’s second-largest Marxistrebel group on Tuesday freed another hostage seized in thehijacking of a commercial airliner 17 months ago.
Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels handedover Juan Manuel Corzo, a congressman who represents the rulingConservative Party, to members of a commission led by formerpresidential candidate Horacio Serpa. The ad hoc panel wassummoned to retrieve Corzo from a war zone in the country’snorthern Bolivar province.
Corzo was one of four hostages still being held since Aprilof last year, when ELN gunmen commandeered an Avianca airlinescommuter plane moments after takeoff from a provincial capitaland forced it to land near one of the rebel army’s junglestrongholds.
The ELN has demanded ransoms for some of the kidnapvictims. But most of the plane’s original 41 passengers andcrew were freed last year. One died, while in captivity, ofwhat the ELN described as heart failure.
Corzo, who complained of a knee injury in a telephoneinterview with the RCN television network, said he was in goodshape.
But he dodged a question of whether a ransom had been paidfor his freedom, saying only that “there are certain mattersthat depend on other parties.”
Appealing for the release of the remaining hostages, two ofwhom are women, Corzo said all were suffering from low morale.
“I wouldn’t wish this on any Colombian,” he said.
Nearly two years after the government launched slow-movingnegotiations with the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces ofColombia (FARC), no date has been set for opening peace talkswith the ELN.
But President Andres Pastrana has clearly warmed to theELN’s call for negotiations and government representatives heldpreliminary yet inconclusive talks with the smaller rebel forcein July in Geneva.
Before then, Pastrana had put negotiations with the ELN onthe back burner largely because of the hijacking and ELNabduction in May 1999 of around 160 worshippers from a Catholicchurch in the southwest city of Cali.
Tuesday’s release of Corzo followed a meeting in Paris onMonday between Pastrana’s peace commissioner, Camilo Gomez, andthe ELN’s No. 2 commander, Antonio Garcia.
The officials also met with mediators from Cuba, Spain,Norway, Switzerland and France who plan to pay a fact-findingvisit to Colombia in a few weeks time, France’s ForeignMinistry said.
About 3,000 abductions were reported in Colombia last year,most blamed on the country’s entrenched guerrillas who useransoms to help bankroll an uprising that has taken more than35,000 lives since 1990.