Chavez, FARC och Betancourt

När Ingrid Betancourt frigavs/fritogs var en av de första hon tackade för sin frigivning den venezolanske presidenten Hugo Chàvez. Om denne verkligen hade stött FARC så tror jag inte hon hade tackat just honom för frigivningen. Det är helt enkelt så att allt snack från borgerliga företrädare om att Chàvez stöder FARC inte något annat än lögner och propaganda. Borgerliga regeringar, borgerlig media och högerskribenter världen över ljuger medvetet för att svartmåla presidenten i Venezuela. Som Johann Hari skriver i brittiska Independent:

As Ingrid Betancourt emerged after six-and-a-half years – sunken and shrivelled but radiant with courage – one of the first people she thanked was Hugo Chavez. What? If you follow the news coverage, you have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs who have been holding her hostage. He paid them $300m to keep killing and to buy uranium for a dirty bomb, in a rare break from dismantling democracy at home and dealing drugs. So how can this moment of dissonance be explained?

Yes: you have been lied to – about one of the most exciting and original experiments in economic redistribution and direct democracy anywhere on earth. And the reason is crude: crude oil. The ability of democracy and freedom to spread to poor countries may depend on whether we can unscramble these propaganda fictions.

Ett av de viktigaste så kallade bevisen mot Chàvez är den dator som Colombias militär säger sig ha hittat när man bombade och dödade FARC-ledaren Reyes i Ecuador. Men det är uppenbart att den datorn inte har funnits i gerillans ägo nån längre tid, utan snarare är en dator som USA:s underrättelsetjänst (CIA eller DIA) tagit fram, försett med lämpliga dokument och gett till Colombias militär:

On 1 March, the Colombian government invaded Ecuador and blew up a Farc training camp. A few hours later, it announced it had found a pristine laptop in the rubble, and had already rummaged through the 39.5 million pages of Microsoft Word documents it contained to find cast-iron ”proof” that Chavez was backing the Farc. Ingrid’s sister, Astrid Betancourt, says it is plainly fake. The camp had been totally burned to pieces and the computers had clearly, she says, been ”in the hands of the Colombian government for a very long time”. Far from fuelling the guerrillas, Chavez has repeatedly pleaded with the Farc to disarm. He managed to negotiate the release of two high-profile hostages – hence Betancourt’s swift thanks. He said: ”The time of guns has passed. Guerilla warfare is history.”

Nrä attacken mot FARC och Reyes skedde i Ecuador var Chàvez involverad i förhandlingar om frigivningar av fångar från FARC. Attacken ledde till att alla sådan förhandlingar sköts i sank:

Last year, under intense pressure over a growing paramilitary scandal engulfing his government, Uribe invited Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to help negotiate a humanitarian exchange of around 40 prisoners held by the FARC for the hundreds of FARC fighters held in Colombian and US prisons. A successful prisoner exchange could have been the first step to a peace settlement to end the fighting.

However, just as it looked like Chavez’s negotiations were making headway, Uribe unilaterally ended his role on a flimsy pretext, scuttling hopes for a negotiated exchange. As a sign of goodwill for Chavez’s intentions, the FARC subsequently released six prisoners unilaterally to the Venezuelan government earlier this year.

Plans for any further unilateral releases, potentially including Betancourt, were literally blown apart by the Colombian military on March 1 when it illegally bombed a FARC campsite inside the Ecuadorian border that killed more than 20 people, including civilians. Among those killed was FARC leader and chief spokesperson Raul Reyes, who was in charge of negotiations over Betancourt’s release.

The liberation of Betancourt could have occurred through an exchange of prisoners last year, had Uribe not ended the process. It is possible she could have been released unilaterally had the FARC negotiator not been murdered. Both possibilities could have been the basis for a serious peace process to begin.

Om inte Uribe-regimen agerat mot FARC på det viset man gjorde i Ecuador är det alltså troligt att Ingrid Betancourt hade frigivits för länge sen.

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