BOGOTA - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe dug in his heels over the weekend against Marxist guerrilla demands that he remove troops from a rural area to clear the way for prisoner swap talks. Despite calls from families of rebel hostages urging him to agree to demilitarize a New York City-sized zone in the west of the country, Uribe signaled he will stick with the hard-line security stance that got him elected.The deadlock is bad news for kidnap victims such as French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, during her 2002 presidential campaign. ‘Safe-haven zones in Colombia have been used by the terrorists to strengthen their efforts to take power,’ said Uribe, adding that he ‘rejects’ the idea.
Uribe first won office in 2002 by criticizing peace initiatives in which the guerrillas were given limited territorial control. Previous President Andres Pastrana ceded a Switzerland-sized area to the rebels to facilitate peace talks that disintegrated after the FARC used the safe area to consolidate their cocaine- and kidnapping-funded revolution. ‘Uribe built his public persona on criticizing Pastrana for granting a safe haven to the FARC, so he can’t be seen falling into the same trap,’ said political commentator Ricardo Avila.