Former senator and hostage mediator Piedad Cordoba called on Colombian businesses Sunday to finance the logistics of the promised release of six FARC hostages after the government rejected foreign help in the operation.
Cordoba, speaking on behalf of her peace organization “Colombians for Peace,” told reporters that “we appeal to entrepeneurs and people who can afford the costs to be made to release those regarded heroes of the nation,” the former lawmaker said before a meeting with her group.
In the past, Venezuela and Brazil assumed the logistics part of hostage release operations, which according to Colombia’s Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras is “unnecessary,” adding however that “If necessary, by some particular logistical circumstances, there would be no objection to the participation of Brazil.”
Without the participation of Brazil, the hostage release mediators are left without the logistical means to carry out a hostage release operation.
In a video released on YouTube, FARC commander Ivan Marquez said Corporal Luis Alfonso Beltran, Sergeant Cesar Augusto Lasso and Second Lieutenants Carlos Jose Duarte, Jorge Trujillo, Jorge Romero and Jose Libardo Forero would be set free.
Apart from the six members of the security forces the guerrillas promised to release, the group holds another five officials and an unknown amount of civilians hostage.
