The World - Chavez out of Colombia hostage talks - A protocol breach leads President Uribe to revoke the Venezuelan leader's authority to negotiate with rebels.
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Families of kidnapping victims reacted with anger Thursday after Colombia's president canceled authorization he had given Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to negotiate a prisoner swap with leftist guerrillas.
President Alvaro Uribe ended the controversial mediation by Venezuela's firebrand leader after Chavez attempted to talk directly to Colombia's armed forces commander for information about the hostages. Analysts said Chavez's bid to bypass Uribe was a clear violation of protocol that all such communication go through the Colombian president's office.
Uribe's spokesman announced the end of the three-month diplomatic initiative at a news conference late Wednesday. The statement came just hours after Uribe expressed confidence in the leftist Venezuelan leader's good intentions and prospects.
The announcement was bitterly disappointing to the victims' families, who saw Chavez as their only hope in breaking a years-long stalemate and who, in interviews Thursday, asked Uribe to reconsider.
"Imagine how we feel, the wives of the kidnapped, with no other alternative and no political will for a humanitarian accord. How will there be an agreement with no facilitators?" said Maria Teresa Paredes, whose police colonel husband, Luis, was kidnapped in November 1998.
Marleny Orejuela, who heads a group of families of military kidnapping victims, agreed.
"Yes, protocol is important, but so is the freedom of those kidnapped," Orejuela said. "If the president for one minute put himself in the shoes of those who have been held in such terrible conditions for so many years, maybe he would reconsider."
The move late Wednesday ends a high-profile effort by Chavez to bring about a humanitarian accord between Uribe's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for the release of 45 political hostages held by the rebels. Hostages include former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. defense contractors, several politicians and more than three dozen members of the army and police.
Uribe gave Chavez the go-ahead after the failure of previous mediation efforts, most recently by negotiators from Spain, France and Switzerland. The Colombian government has offered to trade hundreds of suspected FARC rebels in its jails for the hostages, but the two sides are at odds over conditions for such a swap.
