What did I say earlier on about Chavecito being instrumental in the Colombian hostage negotiations? Looks like at least one former hostage is anxious to see the man who helped free him be brought back on board:
Colombian politician Luis Eladio Perez, liberated in February by the FARC guerrillas, asked of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe that he consider the possibility of re-establishing the mediation of his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, according to an interview published this Friday.
“I call publicly on Uribe that he reconsider the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, as mediator,” announced the ex-congressman, who spent nearly seven years in the hands of the FARC, in an interview published by the daily newspaper El Espectador.
The The request was made in the run-up to the meeting of both presidents on Friday in Venezuela. It will be the first meeting between them since the interruption in November of Chavez’s mediation with the FARC.
That interruption provoked a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries and an exchange of mutual recriminations between the two leaders.
The interview with Perez was made, according to the newspaper, shortly before he left Colombia for Miami on Wednesday, alleging that he had received multiple death threats.
Translation mine.
meeting to take place later today is a hopeful sign, and I hope that El Narco is listening to what Luis Eladio Perez has to say. Maybe he’ll have a special announcement concerning Chavecito later today? We can always hope. But I guess he’ll probably end up “consulting” with Washington first.
Meanwhile, Perez’s allegations of death threats come as no surprise to me. Anyone who’s crossed El Narco and his tyrannical little wishes in this whole affair has gotten them. Just ask Piedad Cordoba. The valiant opposition senator got an official roughing-up when she flew to New York to attend a function at the Venezuelan consulate there. Guess the proxy relationship between Washington and New York works both ways. And it’s not the only time she’s faced threats and menaces from Uribe and his henchmen, either.
So no, I’m not surprised Luis Eladio Perez had to beat a hasty retreat. After what he’s said here, I think he was being very prudent. But if I were him, I’d watch my back in Miami, too–all the right-wing scum of Latin America has a funny way of washing up there. Must be the ocean currents.
