Humanitarian agreement

EU support Chavez mediator role in humanitarian agreement with the Farc

Mathaba

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The European Union (EU) gave its formal support to the mediator role played by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and Alvaro Uribe's government to reach an humanitarian agreement aimed at releasing the guerrilla's hostages...

Caracas, (ABN).- The European Union (EU) gave its formal support to the mediator role played by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and Álvaro Uribe’s government to reach an humanitarian agreement aimed at releasing the guerrilla’s hostages, a communiqué of the EU’s Portuguese Presidency issued by AFP reported.

The EU follows the efforts made by President Hugo Chávez and support the work made by all those people who struggle for the application of the international humanitarian right in Colombia, the communiqué issued Tuesday night in behalf of the 27 members of the Block has informed.

First paragraph of the document underlined that The European Union welcomed all the recent initiatives taken, along with the Colombian government, to reach a humanitarian agreement to guarantee the release of all the hostages, to stop the armed conflict and to bring peace to Colombia.

The document is issued in the eve of a meeting between the Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe, and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, which will take place in the common border. The Presidents will talk about the exchange of the Farc’s hostages by imprisoned rebels.

Among the 45 hostages that the guerrilla plans to exchange by 500 of its imprisoned militants are the Colombian-French former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and three American citizens’ contractors of the State Department of that country.

The Europe’s decision of supporting Chávez’ mediator role was celebrated Wednesday by the Venezuelan ambassador in the EU, Alejandro Fleming, who said that the support shows that the European people believe in the agreement.

The message is that the European block (the 27 countries) supports the mediation and believes in the agreement. It is a responsibility taken by President Chávez, Fleming said.

For the Venezuelan ambassador, the support given by the EU is very important due to the Europe’s preponderance role in this kind of actions, not only in Latin American but in the entire world.

Last September, several Euro-deputies requested to the EU to involve in the issue of the Colombia’s guerrilla hostages during the visit of the Colombian professor Gustavo Roncayo in Brussels, father of a Farc’s hostage since 1997.

Since that occasion, the German leftist Euro-deputy, Helmuth Markov, stressed the need of encouraging the intervention process carried out by President Chávez, described it as a platform to reach the peace in Colombia.

Furthermore, the Italian socialist Claudio Fava assured that the EU has to do more to solve the hostages’ conflict by asking to the Colombian government, for example, to have with the Farc the same attitude assumed with paramilitaries in order to find a solution.