Three visiting legislators from the U.S. Democratic Party told the media on Monday they would be willing to meet members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to seek the release of three U.S. citizens kidnapped by the rebels.
James McGovern, George Miller and Bill Delahunt, who are set tomeet with Colombia's Defense Minister, said they are willing to undertake a humanitarian mission on behalf of the hostages if theyreceive authorization from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
"We are not interested in publicity nor in photographs. We want a humanitarian agreement under which people who have been held, in some cases for more than 10 years, can finally be reunited with their loved ones," McGovern said.
The FARC has held three U.S. citizens since 2003: Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalvez and Keith Stansell. The FARC says the three were U.S. spies, while the U.S. says they were anti-drug contractors.
The U.S. legislators said they had come to Colombia to find out about the process which ended with the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez.
McGovern said the legislators are willing to meet the FARC as long as something concrete would come of such a meeting.
Rojas and Gonzalez spent more than five years in FARC captivity before being released into Venezuelan government custody as part of an internationally supervised mission last Thursday.
Also on Monday, former Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro Leyva told the media that a meeting between the U.S. legislators and the FARC could be possible in the long term and once appropriate conditions exist.
He said the U.S. legislators explicitly acknowledged Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's role in the release of Rojas and Gonzalez.
Chavez acted as a mediator between the FARC and the Colombian government between last August and November until President Uribe put an end to his role, accusing Chavez of breaking an accord between the two by speaking directly to a Colombian general about the hostages.
Leyva also asked the international community to study Chavez's call to stop branding the FARC as terrorists, as a first step towards a hoped-for peace accord.
Last Thursday's release raises the prospect that the 45 other hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian-French politician who was running for president in 2002, three U.S. citizens, and several Colombian politicians and officials, may be freed, if Bogota agrees to free 500 jailed FARC members.
Source:Xinhua
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