Still seeking freedom one year after “Operation Check”

Yesterday Colombian officials including President Alvaro Uribe and several former hostages commemorated the one-year anniversary of a rescue mission that freed fifteen people. Uribe claimed that “Operation Check” was made possible via the controversial military operation on FARC guerilla commander Raul Reyes’s camp in Ecuador which set off a regional diplomatic crisis. In addition he praised the operation which freed Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. contractors, among others and said “I hope we have an ‘Operation Check’ numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6”.

Prognostications that the FARC would be decimated in part due to the rescue may’ve been premature. "Don't underestimate their military importance," said a study released by independent Colombian think-tank Foundation of Ideas for Peace which added that the guerillas are gaining strength in some regions. “With the exception of the July 2008 hostage rescue and a battlefield victory south of Bogotá in March 2008, the military hasn't dealt any further blows to the guerrillas' leadership” observed noted Colombia analyst Adam Isacson in this insightful Foreign Policy article.

For all the joy surrounding the fifteen people freed 366 days ago, hundreds of other hostages remain captive in the Colombian jungle. “For me it is very painful to think that our liberation may serve as a justification to forget them, or to have nothing happen, to turn the page,” said Betancourt days ago. The hard-line by the Uribe administration and the FARC has made it almost impossible for any hostages to be freed and returned to the open arms of their loved ones. Take the case of Colombian soldier Pablo Moncayo who has been held hostage since in 1997:

(The FARC) announced in mid-April it intended to free Moncayo. On Monday, it said it would release a second soldier with him.

But Uribe refused the FARC's demand that Sen. Piedad Cordoba, a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, be present for any hostage handover. She has attended five previous unilateral releases of a total of 12 hostages since early 2008…

Uribe says he will only accept the International Red Cross and the Roman Catholic Church as intermediaries.

"We don't understand why exactly President Uribe doesn't respect the life of Pablo Emilio," 22-year-old Yuri Tatiana Moncayo, one of the captive corporal's four sisters, told The Associated Press…

“The president isn't going to facilitate any unilateral liberation because he thinks that will boost the FARC's political agenda and hurt the government," said political analyst Claudia Lopez. "It's cruel, but that's the way it is."

Thus, hundreds of hostages continue to be deprived of liberty as they continue to be used as pawns in a sick game between intransigent sides.

Image- Cambio (Gustavo Moncayo- the father of hostage Emilio Moncayo has campaigned vigorously for the freeing of Colombian hostages including walking thousand of miles wearing symbolic steel chains).
Online Sources- AP, Foreign Policy, Monsters & Critics, The Latin Americanist, Semana, El Tiempo