Colombian boy may be hostage's son
The 3-year-old has been in foster care for 2 years. His identity, if confirmed, could explain the failure of a prisoner release last weekend.
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — In a bizarre turn in a case that has kept this nation in thrall, preliminary blood tests indicate that a child who has been a government ward for more than two years is the son of Clara Rojas, a presidential campaign manager held by leftist rebels who kidnapped her nearly six years ago.
If confirmed, the results could explain why rebels failed last weekend to release as promised Rojas, her 3-year-old son and former legislator Consuelo Gonzalez to a humanitarian commission formed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with the consent of the Colombian government.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, "offered to release someone they don't have," Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said in a statement Friday, referring to the child who is apparently Rojas' son. The boy lives in a foster care facility here.
Rojas was abducted in February 2002 along with her boss, presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. According to escaped hostages and journalists who claim first-hand knowledge, she gave birth in 2004 to a son fathered by an unidentified rebel.
The child's identity adds one more twist to a saga that began in August, when Uribe authorized Chavez to broker a comprehensive hostages-for-rebels swap, permission he retracted when Chavez broke protocol.
Then last month, the rebels offered to release Rojas, her son and Gonzalez to Chavez as an unconditional gesture of gratitude for the Venezuelan leader's failed mediation efforts. Chavez last weekend sent four helicopters and his commission, which included former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, to Villavicencio, Colombia, to witness the release.
According to the plan, Venezuelan helicopters with International Red Cross markings were to have picked up the hostages at undisclosed jungle locations using coordinates they would receive once in the air.
But the coordinates never came. The commission, news media from around the world and Hollywood director Oliver Stone, who had hoped to film the release, waited in vain. On Monday, Chavez read a letter from FARC blaming Uribe for maintaining military operations in the zone, thus jeopardizing the security of rebels and hostages and scuttling the release.
But in a bombshell announcement, Uribe countered that the real reason FARC wasn't releasing the hostages was because it didn't have Rojas' son, Emmanuel. The government had been tipped last week, Uribe said, that a child likely to be Rojas' son had been given up two years ago to child welfare officials in the eastern jungle city of San Jose de Guaviare.
