REPORT BY GREEN ENVOY ALAIN LIPIETZ, ON HIS RETURN TO FRANCE - 7 MARCH 2002

I have returned from a 48 hour trip to Colombia, where I was sent by the Green Group in the European Parliament "to save the candidate Íngrid". I was accompanied by Jorge Bocanegra, a French Green of Colombian origin who knows Colombia very well, including its Greens, its leftists, and some of its guerrillas (although alas, neither one us knows FARC).

I had two objectives when I left France.

1. To assure Íngrid's family and the Partido Verde-Oxígeno (PVO) of our solidarity. I must say that 3 days before Íngrid's kidnapping, several of PVO's top executives deserted her for the populist candidate Uribe Velez, who is showing 60% in public opinion surveys. This part of my mission was largely accomplished (with press conferences, and a small political meeting with the regional leaders of this young party, which has been completely confused and demoralized by Íngrid's very weak survey results (1%), and literally decapitated -- Íngrid and the traitors held all the party's legal authority).

2. To deliver messages to various actors.

- To the government: "No military operation to recover Íngrid." Chirac had said this, as had the French ambassador (who is very close to the Íngrid's family). The Colombian ministers of Foreign Affairs and Interior, who received us at the airport, confirmed that commands were given to the army not to take such a risk.

- To civil society and the government: that Europe persists in being opposed to the U.S. "Plan Colombia", and in thinking that the only solution is a negotiated one, which currently the Colombian society no longer accepts. From this comes the broad public support for Uribe, patron of the paramilitaries, who promises "the return of state authority", and thus crushes candidates who represent support for peace: including Íngrid, and the 2 parties of the left, which together have no more but 5%, whereas the social forces on which they rest once had been able to impose three years ago the opening of the peace negotiations.

- To FARC: that it should release Íngrid unconditionally (whereas they have given the government a one year ultimatum to exchange her for captive guerrillas), and that there is only one possible exchange: the respect by the FARC of the human rights, against the continuation of European Union support for the resumption of the peace process.

This attempt failed. It rested on the optimistic assumption that FARC had not realized that by kidnapping Íngrid they were tackling the goodwill of Europe, the Global Greens, etc., and not simply the candidate of a small local party. To transmit this message, I had sent an email to FARC before leaving (cf on my site), and we held multiple press conferences. Without any response. Unless we consider FARC's response to be the repetition of the ultimatum, the day of our arrival, by "the commander of the southern front," who is a hawk within FARC.

Our meetings with ambassadors facilitating the peace negotiations -- from France, Spain, and Italy -- as well as with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, with organizers of the principal peace networks, and with 3 progressive presidential candidates (the 2 above-mentioned ones and the "liberal" candidate, a member of the Socialist International), persuaded me that this was in fact the response to my email: the hawks had temporarily taken over FARC, they did not wish the resumption of negotiations, and they were leaning towards a position similar to Perú's Shining Path guerrilla movement (rest assured, the FARC are not culturally like Shining Path, otherwise Íngrid would have already died). The Colombian situation: a little, if you will, as if Hamas had come to power among Palestinians, just as Sharon was on the point of seizing power in Israel, after Barak had already set Israeli policy by invading Jericho and Gaza.

It thus becomes necessary to implement a Plan B.

. It becomes important that Europe begins to make more threats, but nevertheless leaves an opening. The 3 European ambassadors did not agree with me on a formulation of the type "the European Union will no longer be able to play its role of facilitator as long as Íngrid etc". It will be necessary to have this accepted by the Council and Parliament of Europe, while avoiding the worst: the characterization of the FARC as "terrorist" (which is, however, what they deserve).

. If the hawks within FARC don't care about European peace efforts, they cannot completely ignore their contacts of the Left on the South American continent, for example their friends in the "Forum of Sao Paulo", like the Brazilian PT [Worker's Party]. And especially, they must maintain the benevolent neutrality of the Ecuadorian Pachakutik party, with which I have the best rapport, and whose new elected officials hold power along the jungle frontier with Colombia (cf on my site, under the heading "articles et debats" : "La zone des tempêtes bolivarienne")

<http://perso.club-internet.fr/lipietz/CD/CD_Bolivar.html>

We had started applying this pressure from Brussels last week, by asking the Forum of Sao Paulo to intervene.

Unable to organize a voyage by plane to San Vincente del Caguán (to greet the mayor, a Green that I had invited last year to Strasbourg, and deliver an official message within the framework of the Plan A), I returned to France where I found already awaiting me the impeccable letter from PT tohe FARC, firmly condemning the kidnapping of Íngrid, according to the line of argumentation that "you cannot ask for the resumption of the peace process while violating the same peace, etc." And I went to work on Pachakutik.

That's all, folks.