Media blamed for ‘disfiguring’ government’s position; Maduro says peace was always the aim

EFE News Service: President Hugo Chavez’ abrupt about-turn against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) continued apace with Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro insisting that the government had always wanted peace in the neighboring country. Maduro said Chavez’ call for the FARC to release all hostages without conditions "ratified a historic position in favor of peace in Colombia," which was "very important for the Latin American region."

Blithely setting aside almost a decade in which the President has at the least been suspected by friend and foe alike of harboring sympathy for the FARC as fellow revolutionaries, the minister claimed peace had been the aim all along.

"From nine years ago, the government has had a sole position regarding the Colombian armed conflict, and this position is the need to search for peace via negotiations as a solution to 60 years of uninterrupted violence, of which 44 have been guerrilla wars of various sorts and with different organizations," of which one was the FARC, Maduro said during a program on state channel VTV.

The minister blamed the media. The government's position had been "disfigured" by a worldwide disinformation machine on behalf of the international right wing, he claimed, citing El Pais of Spain, ABC, The Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald and "certain sectors of the ultra-left or the infantilism of the left." Whether he viewed these last as two different beings or one and the same thing wasn't clear.

Venezuela and its President, he continued, had taken part in processes related to the freeing of hostages at the request of the government of Colombia, and only and exclusively with the authorization of that government. "No other process" had occurred, he added.

Turning to the Venezuelan soldier, Manuel Agudo Escalona, who was arrested last Friday on the Colombian side of the border allegedly in possession of ammunition for Russian assault rifles, Maduro said the case had nothing to do with the state. The responsibility, he argued, didn't reach the state and instead lay with an individual.

Chavez had ordered a full investigation to find out what had happened, whether the man in question was indeed Venezuelan, or "belonged to some institution and what crime he committed on our frontier," as well as the state of the legal process, the minister said.