Colombia cancels Chavez’s mediation

BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombia’s cancellation of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s mediation with leftist rebels threw into disarray hopes for a prisoner swap that would free three U.S. military contractors and a former presidential candidate.

The decision, announced late Wednesday, took Colombians by surprise but followed a series of increasingly tense exchanges between Chavez and this country’s conservative president, Alvaro Uribe.

It also prompted an immediate appeal Thursday from France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, not to end the go-between role Chavez assumed in August.

Among the 45 hostages is Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian citizen seized in 2002 while campaigning for Colombia’s presidency.

The Venezuelan president defied Uribe by directly contacting Colombia’s army chief on Wednesday to discuss the hostages, Uribe’s spokesman said in a hastily called late-night appearance.

On Thursday, Chavez said he would talk with Colombian officials about the reasons for the move.

“I respect President Uribe’s decision, though I strongly regret it, first for the prisoners in the hands of the guerrillas and the guerrillas who are in prisons, as well as their families, loved ones and Colombia,” Chavez told a rally in Caracas.

The American hostages, Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Tom Howes, were taken by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in February 2003 after their small plane crashed in the jungle during a surveillance mission.

“Chavez was the best and only hope,” Gonsalves’ mother, Jo Rosano, said from her Connecticut home. “The FARC is at least trying. Uribe says he wants an agreement, but he is not to be trusted.”

Betancourt and the three Americans are valuable assets for the FARC, which has been fighting the government for more than four decades and is bankrolled chiefly by the cocaine trade.

For their release, Latin America’s most potent rebel force was demanding the government free all imprisoned guerrillas, who number in the hundreds.