The center of the drama surrounding FARC hostages has moved from Hugo Chavez and Ingrid Betancourt to a little boy known as Emmanuel. The Colombian government is saying that the FARC canceled a scheduled release of three hostages earlier this week, because they don’t have one of the promised hostages, Emmanuel. Emmanuel is the approximately 4 year old son of another hostage that was to be released, Clara Rojas. Rojas, who used to work with Ingrid Betancourt, had the boy while in FARC custody, presumably with one of her captors. Interestingly enough, little about this angle has been covered, especially the glaring possibility that Rojas was raped.

An “orphaned” boy in the custody of the Colombian Family Wellness Organization, (very rough translation) known as Juan David Gomez, matched physical descriptions of Emmanuel, including an injured left arm. DNA tests were conducted on the boy using his alleged grandmother, the mother of Clara Rojas and two brothers of Clara Rojas, in Caracas.

In 2005, Juan David Gomez was turned over to the Colombian authorities by a man claiming first to be the boy’s great uncle, then saying he’s the boy’s father, now saying he’s not related to the boy at all.

One of the sides is obviously not telling the truth. If the boy does indeed turn out to be Emmanuel, the FARC will certainly have a hard time negotiating anything. If the boy is not Emmanuel, well then the Uribe government will likely be called out as liars who attempted to sabotage Hugo Chavez’s attempts to secure the release of hostages, something that the government has failed hugely at doing.

Via / AP and El Tiempo.