“Be brave, Ingrid, I hope to see you soon”. Former hostage, Clara Rojas held by rebels in Colombia, and freed on 10 January 2008 with former Senator Consuelo Gonzales, revealed on Radio Caracol she had no news of Ingrid Betancourt for three years, with whom she was kidnapped inFebruary 2002.Clara says the guerrilla had separated the two women “for security reasons”.

In her interview Clara Rojas spoke about her son’s birth on 16 April 2004, by Caesarean section. The birth confined her to bed in the jungle for forty days while military operations were going on nearby. During the birth the baby’s arm was broken. ” It was tough but I’m alive to day because of my child and I hope he is too because of me. He’s a brave boy”.

Ingrid Betancourt made his first baby clothes and sang to him in French, said Clara. “I kept the clothes to show them to my mother and also to Yolanda Pulecio (Ingrid’s mother)”, she said. Clara was separated from her baby when he was 8 months old. She learned at the same time as everyone else that he had been placed in a Colombian care home in Bogotá in 2005.”I was the first to be amazed, I had been told that he was fine and not to worry but I hadn’t had news of my child”.

“Men chained by the neck on a permanent basis”

Regarding her release, Clara Rojas revealed that she and Consuelo Gonzales had walked for 20 days non-stop.”We were exhausted and did not sleep well”. In another interview on the Colombian radio station “W”, Consuelo Gonzales, aged 57, held by FARC since September 2001, criticised the conditions in which male captives were held, saying they were chained 24 hours a day.”The men were kept chained by the neck and washed themselves while wearing them, no matter what they did, they were chained and at night, perhaps due to security reasons, chains were put from the end of their beds to a tree trunk”, said the former parliamentarian. Women held by the rebels were not subjected to the same conditions.

Consuelo Gonzales asked the people of Colombia to do “something” so that the other hostages could be freed. The two women brought ‘proofs of life’ of eight other hostages with whom they were held to President Chavez. Consuelo Gonzales stated these 8 hostages “were very exhausted physically with major health problems (…) there is no medical care”.

Uribe acknowledges the efforts of President Chavez and asks FARC to negotiate

President Alvaro Uribe welcomed on Thursday 10 January “the effectiveness of the operation led by his Venezuelan counterpart to bring about the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzales and expressed “his thanks” to Hugo Chavez in a televised message to the Colombian people.

Monday last, the Colombian Government said it would not accept any further international initiatives to free FARC hostages, following the recent unsuccessful one at end of December, to free three hostages. The Government said the initiative planned under the auspices of the Red Cross and Venezuela had only resulted in “ criticising the Colombian government and promoting FARC propaganda”. President Uribe stressed on Thursday that FARC held 750 persons, 44 of whom could be exchanged and the remainder were being held for ransom by FARC. The President of Colombia invited FARC to “consider straightforward negotiations, swiftly and in good faith that would be underpinned by democratic guarantees.