Hugo Chavez and his dubious role as hostage negotiator

Last week, the founder and chief of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) Pedro Antonio Marín, alias Manuel Marulanda and/or Tirofijo, announced a "general offensive" in a New Year message. He encouraged the guerrilla movement to take advantage of the alleged "crisis faced by the government and the tiredness shown by some military units to work on a general offensive," and he urged his subordinate commanders to "launch armed actions in roads, lanes, jungle, urban centers, villages and garrisons, with no truce for the enemy, as they do it."

In related news, the Colombian government announced on Monday that it would no longer authorize international humanitarian missions such as the one that late December arrived in Villavicencio to witness the failed delivery of three hostages held by the left-wing Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) to President Hugo Chávez. Colombian Minister of the Interior and Justice Carlos Holguín Sardi argued that, following the FARC's failure to meet their promise to release three hostages, "you cannot negotiate with cheaters and liars."

The following day, Colombian High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo softened the Uribe Administration's position when he said that any future efforts by the international community to support the release of the hostages held by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) should be based on "their reliance on the Colombian government, discrete operations, and efficient communication." This is good news because it serves to clarify the previous position that seemed to rule out any possibility of future mediation efforts led by international parties.

Some hardliners argue that Colombia ought to reject offers by "outsiders" to serve as mediators between the Colombian government and the FARC. Distrustful of his motives, some view Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's ongoing mediation efforts as a veiled interventionist strategy aimed at undermining Colombian sovereignty. Unfortunately, such rigid positions are unwise and may even be counterproductive to the negotiation process.

While Chavez may indeed possess ulterior motives, this might be used to break the current impasse. A strong argument can be made that the FARC finds itself in an untenable position, weakened by numerous military setbacks at the hands of the U.S.-backed Colombian armed forces and increasingly poor internal coordination. This last point became more evident in recent weeks as the group was unable to verify the whereabouts and locate Emmanuel, the three-year-old boy that the FARC had agreed to hand over to Chavez as part of a December hostage release. For more coverage of the proposed hostage release, click here.

And while the FARC might have indeed lied to Chavez about the hostage release or tried to "fool the international community" by offering to hand over a hostage that it did not have, something about this explanation fails to be convincing. Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy posits that rather than trying to pull off an elaborate ruse, the FARC simply lost track of the boy due to its own incompetence.

This incompetence, combined with the reality that they no longer operate freely as they once did throughout much of the Colombian countryside, demonstrates that the insurgency is engaged in a costly and unsustainable predicament. Then again, the movement has been waging war for over 40 years and seems to possess vast reserves of patience and the capacity to wait out its current vulnerability through pursuing a strategy of playing not to lose rather than playing to win.

Assuming that the FARC does perceive that a military victory cannot be attained, it might choose to pursue an alternative approach in the place of a sustained armed conflict. It is therefore possible that the group will give up its weapons and engage in the political process if it could be convinced that doing so were worthwhile. That is precisely why Hugo Chavez plays such an important and beneficial role as the mediator. In fact, he and his leftist allies in the region might actually be the only parties capable of convincing the FARC to cease their armed struggle and instead seek power and influence through the ballot box. While we are still far from reaching this outcome, I am still hopeful that the parties will find a way to move past the current impasse. We shall see if President Chavez can facilitate this process by brokering a hostage release in the coming days and weeks.