Like a lead balloon...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s suggestion that the Colombian rebel group known by its initials FARC be stricken from the rolls of global terrorist organizations hasn’t gone over well with his Latin American neighbors. Even friendly governments in Ecuador and Argentina dismissed the idea. Chavez’s cause wasn’t helped by Sunday’s kidnapping, apparently by the FARC’s 57th Front, of six tourists in Choco state on the Pacific Coast, just three days after the rebels released Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, who had been held captive more than five years.

Further hardening public opinion, it seems, was the release of the contents of eight ‘proof of life’ letters that Gonzalez brought to kidnap victims’ families. In heartbreaking detail, police Col. Luis Mendieta described in one of them the boredom and stress experienced by captives perpetually on the run from the Colombian military.

On Sunday, Rojas was reunited with her 3-year-old son, Emmanuel, from whom she was separated by rebels eight months after giving birth. Apparently in good health, the boy will remain in state custody until paperwork and medical tests are completed. Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of Ingrid Betancourt, the presidential candidate who was kidnapped along with Rojas in 2002, said Chavez’s continued mediation with the FARC is her ‘only hope’ of seeing her daughter released.

-- Chris Kraul in Bogota