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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Chavez addresses Colombia rebels

Christopher Toothaker Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday urged Colombian rebels to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and end a decades-long armed struggle.

Chavez sent the uncharacteristic message to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia’s democratically elected government were unjustified.

“The guerrilla war is history,” Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program. “At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.”

Such declarations were unexpected from Chavez, who has long been accused of giving the rebels refuge. A self-described socialist, he called on world governments to remove the FARC from terrorist lists earlier this year, suggesting the group is in fact a legitimate insurgency.

Colombia’s government says that a laptop recovered from an FARC camp in March shows a history of deep collaboration between the rebels and Chavez – something the Venezuelan leader denies.

But addressing FARC’s new leader Alfonso Cano on Sunday, Chavez said, “I think the time has come for the FARC to free everyone they have in the mountains. It would be a great, humanitarian gesture in exchange for nothing.”

In the past, the FARC has said it would be willing to swap hostages for guerrillas imprisoned in Colombia and the United States.

Carlos Lozano, who has mediated between the government and rebels, told Caracol radio Sunday that he had re-established contact with the FARC in hope of facilitating the release of more hostages.

Lozano, editor of a communist newspaper, said that while he had not spoken directly with Cano, “everything is going the right way.”

Yet a FARC statement posted Sunday on a Web site sympathetic to its cause suggested the group is far from laying down its arms.

Written by rebel leader Luciano Marin Arango, alias “Ivan Marquez,” and dated June 5, the statement demands that new elections be called to oust Colombia’s government and Congress. The FARC’s “strategic objective is the taking of power for the people,” the statement said.

It also claimed that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has backed plans to kill Chavez and leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

Colombia’s government did not immediately respond to those charges.

Latin America expert Bruce Bagley said he believes Chavez may be distancing himself from the FARC because he no longer wants to be associated with “an illegal and terrorist organization” tarnished by drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.

“Chavez, as he has in the past, is correcting his course to burnish his image at home and abroad,” said Bagley, chairman of international studies at the University of Miami. “Chavez is making the only smart policy move available to him publicly. He may not mean it. Only time will tell.”