Hostage talks take governor to Venezuela

Richardson hopes to persuade Chávez to help free hostages in Colombian

Kate Nash | The New Mexican

4/23/2008 - 4/24/08

Typically, Gov. Bill Richardson likes to get his big projects done in a hurry.

His latest endeavor, however — a mission to free three U.S. citizen hostages from Colombian rebels — will not happen quickly.

Still, he leaves Friday for Caracas, Venezuela, to see whether he can persuade President Hugo Chávez to work with Colombian leaders to let go of three men held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Chávez is seen as an intermediary with the rebels, who earlier this year released six hostages to him.

"We'll see if Chávez can be a mediator and help. It's not easy to talk to FARC," Richardson said at a news conference Wednesday.

The U.S. hostages are military contractors, captured by FARC in 2003 after their plane crashed during a mission to scope out coca fields.

Richardson last month was in Colombia, whose government is seen as an ally of the United States, to meet with President Álvaro Uribe and start the negotiation process.

The governor, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations as well as Department of Energy secretary under former President Clinton, has experience negotiating hostage releases in countries including Sudan, Iraq and North Korea.

Richardson's office is coordinating the trip with the U.S. State Department, but says his mission is a humanitarian one. "The purpose of my trip is humanitarian. I am not a special envoy trying to better relations with Venezuela," the governor said.

He emphasized his one-day trip to Venezuela would not lead to the immediate release of any hostages. "I'm not going to bring the hostages back in one shot. It will be a little time," Richardson said.

Richardson faces a tough road to the release, some Latin American experts have said. The politics are complicated: Chávez is not an ally of the United States, and the Bush administration has said it will not negotiate with terrorist groups such as FARC.

Complicating matters further is the rocky relationship of the South American leaders who are involved. Chávez got crosswise with Uribe in March after Colombian soldiers killed the FARC's No. 2 leader. Neighboring Ecuador also was dragged into the situation because the airstrikes that killed the FARC leader, Raúl Reyes, were launched from Colombian airspace into Ecuador. Both Chávez and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa sent troops to the border with Colombia in what appeared to be leading up to a military showdown.

The families of the three hostages asked Richardson to get involved after being contacted by his office earlier this year. They have sought help from many politicians, from President Bush on down, and have met Uribe and Chávez.

A few other U.S. politicians including congressmen have tried to reach out to Chávez, whom the governor met 10 years ago after Chávez took power. "All I'm trying to do with President Chávez is get him to help us secure the release of three Americans and others," Richardson said. "There's a French woman too, Ingrid Betancourt. There are other Colombians," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter, at www.sfnewmexican.com.