Impending hostage release

Get ready for another heavy dose of Hugo Chavez in the media. The Venezuelan president is about to broker the release of three more hostages held for years in chains and cages by the Colombian rebel group known as the FARC. Last week, the rebels announced they would release former politicians Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez (pictured) and Orlando Beltran, all said to be in declining health. The rebels stipulated that the hostages would be given up only to Chavez emissaries at some undisclosed location inside Colombia. Those were the conditions of the release Jan. 10 of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, which, along with the reunion of Rojas and her 3-year-old son, Emmanuel, caught the world's attention.

Beltran's wife, Deyanira Ortiz, arrived in Caracas on Monday to be on hand when her husband is finally liberated, nearly seven years after he was taken prisoner as he drove on a country road south of Neiva. "She is so happy her children will finally have their father back at home," said a friend, Sonia Daza, by telephone Monday.

Polanco's case is even more tragic. She and her two sons were kidnapped in 2001 when a FARC commando unit stormed their apartment tower in Neiva. The boys were released three years later after their father, Jaime Losada, a former governor of Huila state, paid a ransom. Polanco remained a prisoner, however, because the sitting legislator had value as political barter. Then in December 2005, Losada was killed at a roadblock by suspected rebels.

Whatever international goodwill Chavez generated by mediating the release of Rojas and Gonzalez evaporated two days later when he told Venezuela's National Assembly that the FARC should not be labeled terrorists, as Colombia and the United States insist. Colombians were outraged and many governments around the world rejected such a notion. Whatever political point Chavez makes with the upcoming hostage release is sure to generate interest, if not approbation.

-- Chris Kraul in Bogota

Photo by Reuters/TV