Swiss role in hostage release was discreet

Clara Rojas welcomes freedom at Caracas airport in Venezuela Keystone

Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has praised the discreet Swiss role played in the liberation on Thursday of two women held by left-wing rebels in Colombia.

However, she said media pressure surrounding another hostage – former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt – might be negative.

“We prepared the groundwork which made the release possible,” while working “in the background” Calmy-Rey explained in an interview with the Lausanne newspaper Le Matin.

She said Switzerland had been the first country to have contact with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) regarding the hostages.

“We were the first to have signs of life of the hostages in 2003.” She said it was clear that Swiss action had helped Thursday’s release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo González.

Asked about Switzerland’s role as a facilitator, Calmy-Rey said it had not been “without danger” because “we went… into the jungle to the Farc. It was not only discussions among officials”.

Trust

“Contacts, information, trust. And if you are not discreet you endanger success of the plan.”

“It should not be a media operation out for its own glory because it is a question of the health and lives of human beings.”

The Farc released Rojas and Gonzàlez in an operation supervised by the Venezeulan president, Hugo Chàvez, whom Calmy-Rey praised along with the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, and the Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross.

Calmy-Rey questioned the media pressure surrounding French-Colombian politician Betancourt, in an apparent reference to France.

“She represents the most obvious symbol of the Farc’s strength. And media pressure makes negotiations more difficult. As for Swiss diplomacy, it is by nature modest.”

The Swiss foreign ministry on Thursday said it would continue offering its services to help find humanitarian solutions for all hostages and prisoners held by the Farc in Colombia.

Together with France and Spain, Switzerland has engaged in trying to secure the release of hostages in Latin America for several years.

Ordeal over

After her liberation, Rojas said on Friday she longed to be reunited with the three-year-old son she had with one of the guerrillas now that her ordeal was over.

A dangerous, kitchen-knife caesarian delivery of the boy, Emmanuel, and Rojas’ separation from him when he was eight months old were among the many traumatic experiences she and González recounted a day after they were freed.

Long treks through the forest, prisoners held in chains, and terrifying aerial raids also marked some six years in captivity.

Rojas, an aide to Betancourt, said she knew little about the rebel who fathered her son and would raise the boy on her own.

“I don’t have any information about the boy’s father. What’s more, I don’t have any idea if he even knows he’s the boy’s father,” Rojas said.

“The information I have is that he could even have died. I don’t have any confirmation.”

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In brief

The Colombian government and the 17,000 strong leftwing rebels, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), have been fighting each other for four decades.

There are an estimated 3,200 kidnap victims held by the Farc, other rebel groups and criminals in Colombia, according to government figures.

The guerrillas were organised in the 1960s to force land reforms and other measures meant to close the wide gap that separates rich and poor in the Andean country.

They are said to fund their operations with extortion, kidnapping for ransom, drug smuggling and contraband gasoline.