While arrogant Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Hollywood sidekick director Oliver Stone held the world at bay over the Christmas holidays waiting for the release of a 3-year-old hostage, the little boy could have been in a Bogotá orphanage all the while.
“Relatives of a child born to a hostage mother and a guerilla father will undergo DNA testing Tuesday to determine whether the child is still a captive—or in a Bogotá orphanage, as the Colombian president has charged.” (AFP, Jan. 1, 2008).
Proof that Emmanuel is in a Bogotá orphanage would prove Chavez, prancing about Villavicencio in the signature red beret and fatigues of his paratrooper days as the global court jester of all time.
“Chavez’s name never much revered in Colombia in the first place is now mud,” Bogotá Free Planet (BFP) publisher Ernesto Pardo told Canada Free Press (CFP) this morning.
“DNA doesn’t lie like certain politicians do.”
Acting out his Saviour of the Human Hostage role on the world stage, Chavez proved himself, hype and Stone notwithstanding, an abysmal failure.
With the world watching over the Christmas holidays, Chavez, a shill for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known as the FARC), raised human hope to a soaring high that was soon dropped like a stone on anyone interested in the fate of a 3-year-old born in captivity.
Holed up in Colombia with film director Oliver Stone, 150 media types and friends and relatives of FARC hostages, Chavez today blamed his latest stunning defeat on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Given his penchant for showmanship, the free world should have known that Chavez, long on bravado and street theatre, was using the free-the-hostage mission as yet another publicity stunt.
In his red beret, Chavez waiting on FARC with a fleet of helicopters in Villavicencio, about 50 miles south of Bogotá, came on like the proverbial banty rooster.
Called “a great man” by the Colombia-touring film director Oliver Stone, he strutted and preened for cameras of the world, on site for the Big Event that never happened.
“Using his credibility as a former rebel leader, Mr. Chavez orchestrated a plan to release three hostages being held for years in the jungle by FARC.” (New York Times, Jan. 2, 2008). “Bristling with confidence, he assembled his allies in Latin America, including the former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, to witness a breakthrough in the decades-old conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC. The movie director Oliver Stone was part of a multinational group of observers that included diplomats from seven countries, including France and Switzerland.”
Though the rude ad crude Chavez used humour as good people everywhere awaited the release of 3-year-old Emmanuel who was born in captivity to hostage Clara Rojas, Colombians were long ago onto him.
Joking that Stone was an “emissary” from President George W. Bush, the joke boomeranged back to him.
“This is not a tennis game,” Colombia’s top peace negotiator. Luis Carlos Restrepo said last week, reiterating his government’s refusal of the FARC’s demand for a New York City-sized temporary safe haven in southern Colombia as a venue for talks on swapping the remaining 44 hostages for hundreds of jailed rebels.
“In a statement read by Chavez Monday, the FARC said it delayed the release because of military operations in the area where it was to take place. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the real reason was that the rebels could not produce Emmanuel Rojas.
“Uribe caused a stir by saying that the two-to-three-year-old child of Clara Rojas was actually in Bogotá at a state-run orphanage of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF), and had been there since July 2006. He urged DNA tests on Emmanuel’s grandmother to determine the truth.
“Born in captivity form an alleged consensual relationship between hostage Clara Rojas and a FARC guerilla, Emmanuel captured the imagination of the world when the rebels announced they would release him, his mother and lawmaker Consuelo Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, although Chavez seems already headed for Time Magazine’s 2008 Man of the Year, the Chavez-fawning Oliver Stone should have Hollywood award the Venezuelan President its next Oscar.
Judi McLeod——
Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
