Via the BBC: Colombia offers Farc hostage deal

Colombia has offered to release jailed Farc rebels if they first hand over former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages.

Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said that if some captives were liberated, it could begin the process of exchanging rebels for hostages.

[...]

Announcing the “humanitarian” offer, Mr Restrepo told a news conference: “The legal basis for a humanitarian exchange has been established and we have reduced the requirements as much as possible.

“The government has joined the national and international cry that the life of Ingrid Betancourt be saved. We cannot run risks in this case and there is no more time to wait.”

Betancourt has been in the FARC’s custody for going on six years and is reportedly quite ill:

She is said to have hepatitis B and a tropical skin disease.

The Colombian government is making a concession here, as the FARC has demanded prisoner releases in the past (amongst other things). One suspects that the combination of recent FARC prisoner releases coupled with the the damage that they have sustained of late (i.e., the death of two of their seven member secretariat) means that the government thinks that they are more susceptible to negotiation at the moment.

For the sake of Betancourt and others in captivity, we can only hope so.