VivirLatino

Chavez authorized to move forward with FARC

15:45 H | Topics: Colombia - Politics - Venezuela

Things are moving pretty quickly in the FARC hostage situation. This morning, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said that all he needed to move forward with the getting the FARC hostages freed was the Colombian government's authorization.

A couple of hours later, El Universal reported that Colombia was "studying Chavez's proposal". Now, word just came that Colombia will accept Chavez's offer and let him facilitate the freeing of three hostages, Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel, and ex-congresswoman Consuelo González de Pérdomo. The official statement from the government is:

"The government of Colombia authorizes the humanitarian mission based on the terms described and assigns Doctor Luis Carlos Restrepo as its representative delegate.

Chavez has codenamed the mission "Transparency" and is attempting to prove that the operation will live up to its name by laying out publicly exactly what will happen:

He explained that the operation will include variable locations from which it will begin on Venezuelan soil, but that the first phase will end at the airport in the Colombian city of Villavicencio, capital of the state of Meta.

"There the small Falcon 90 planes will remain, and from there helicopters, equipped with supplemental fuel tanks, will depart to the FARC meeting point, which is secret," he said.

"The will move in a direction that is still unknown. Not even the pilots know the coordinates they will follow. They only know that they will take off from Villavicencio. This is a FARC demand that I understand and it seems obvious that it be that way."

Let's hope that everything works out as planned and no one gets hurt.

Via / El Universal

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