Reply #16: "...his role went against international protocol." Nope, what he did was have

[Peace Patriot]

a Colombian senator call the Colombian military, reportedly to inquire how many Colombian soldiers were held as hostages by the FARC. That phone call was the lame excuse that Uribe used to publicly withdraw his request to Chavez to negotiate with the FARC, days before the first hostages were to be released. It was this first group of hostages--that Chavez eventually got successfully released--who were bombed by the Colombian military, as they were in route to their freedom. The Colombian military also arrested FARC curriers who were carrying proof-of-life documentation (a first step in hostage negotiations) to Chavez, and Uribe & co. made political hay of these documents (which I won't go into here). (Another rule of hostage negotiations is, you don't arrest such curriers.)

This all occurred in the week of 12/1/08, the date of Donald Rumsfeld's op-ed in the Washington Post, in which in the first paragraph he asserts that Chavez's help in getting hostages released was "not welcome in Colombia," though it had been days before. Chavez had been proceeding at Uribe's request. (Rumsfeld, of course, doesn't mention this in the op-ed, which is entitled, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez.")

My guess: Rumsfeld call to Uribe. Rumsfeld: 'Chavez is going to succeed in getting hostages released. Withdraw your request, pronto, and I'll talk to Santos (Colombian Defense Minister) about pinpointing the hostages in route and hitting them with rocket fire. We'll hand Chavez a P.R. disaster.' Uribe: 'But I asked him to do it, like you told me to. I'll look foolish.' Rumsfeld: 'So what? You've got your orders. Get on it, now!'

Another guess: The phone call to the Colombian military wasn't just about the number of Colombian soldiers in captivity. It was about receiving assurances that the Colombian military was not going to sabotage the hostage release. And that is why Uribe was so pissed--the plot was foiled. Possibly FARC got a warning and were able to get the hostages out of there and back to safety (which is what they did). (They got them out by another route later.) And this may also have been why the U.S./Colombia blew away the hostage-release camp that FARC's chief hostage negotiator, Raul Reyes, set up later (for Ingrid Betancourt's release) just inside Ecuador's border. They used US high tech surveillance and 5 to 10 US "smart bombs" (and likely a US "war on drugs" airplane out of the Manta, Ecuador, base) to slaughter Reyes and 24 others in their sleep, on the eve of Betancourt's release (in March 08), and almost started a war between Ecuador/Venezuela and Colombia (another purpose of the bombing/raid on Ecuadoran territory). In Dec 07-Feb 08, Chavez got a total of six FARC hostages released. More were coming. Instead of a P.R. disaster, Chavez was succeeding at the task that Uribe had asked him to do--and that the hostages families and several world leaders had begged him to continue--and there was talk of a possible peace settlement of the 40+ year Colombian civil war.

And all of this is, of course, why Ingrid Betancourt thanked Chavez. He worked relentlessly to get her released--even with Uribe, Santos, Rumsfeld and the Bushwhacks gunning for him, with this treacherous plot (and in other ways, including the original plot to assassinate him, by which they lured him to a meeting--for Uribe's apology--at which the trap was likely set up, by asking him to negotiate with the FARC). (They also later called Chavez a "terrorist" for his contacts with the FARC. The treachery was mind-boggling.)

----

"In 2007, Chavez acted as a mediator between FARC and the Colombian government in talks to release hostages. // However, Colombia then dropped Chavez as a negotiator. saying his role went against international protocol."

This narrative is hardly adequate to describe these events, and whoever in Colombia said that Chavez's "role went against international protocol" was simply lying.