[Marxism] Emmanuel

[Anthony Boynton]

The story of Emmanuel is not over, but the latest
unbelievable chapter is below. All of the political
playrs look bad: The FARC lied and deceived Hugo
Chaves, and the world, Uribe lied and probably kept
the child a virutal prisoner instead o uniting him
with his family – and Chavs was duped by the FARC.
Uribe may have gained some points by driving a wedge
between Chaves and the FARC and erasing the gains the
FARC has been trying to make to achieve international
recognition and remove their organization from lists
of "terrorist organizations". This may have been the
reason Uribe was willing to look like a bad guy, he
may have thought losing a few points of popularity was
a price he could afford to pay to keep the FARC
politically isolated. More later Anthony

DNA: Orphan is Colombian hostage's son
By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer Sat Jan 5,
3:16 AM ET

BOGOTA, Colombia - Leftist rebels had promised to hand
over a 3-year-old along with the child's mother and a
third hostage, raising hopes that a rescue effort
spearheaded by Venezuela's president would succeed.

But the result of a DNA test on Friday was downright
soap opera material: It revealed that the boy,
Emmanuel, had spent the last two years not in a jungle
rebel camp, but in a Bogota foster home.

The result was a setback for those involved in the
now-tabled rescue operation, as well as a major
embarrassment for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC.

The story of Emmanuel has transfixed Colombia since a
Colombian journalist first reported in a 2006 expose
book that the child was born to one of the rebels'
most prominent hostages, former vice presidential
candidate Clara Rojas, as the product of a
relationship with one of her captors, reportedly a
rank-and-file guerrilla named Rigo.

The story drew in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,
who has been negotiating with the FARC, to release the
child, his mother and another hostage. But what Chavez
called "Operation Emmanuel" fell through this week
when the rebels said operations by Colombia's
U.S.-backed military were preventing them from handing
over the hostages.

On Friday, chief federal prosecutor Mario Iguaran said
DNA tests performed on Rojas' family members and the
child in the Bogota foster home proved that the boy
known as Juan David Gomez is actually Rojas' son.

The boy had been handed over at the age of 11 months
by Jose Gomez, a peasant farmer who said he was the
child's great-uncle, to child welfare workers in San
Jose de Guaviare, a town in a FARC-dominated zone of
eastern Colombia. The baby had a broken arm and was
sick from malnutrition and leishmaniasis, an infection
common in the jungle.

The baby was rushed to Bogota for an operation to heal
his arm, then sent to a foster home in the capital,
one of 6 million orphaned minors placed under the
state's care. He lived there for two years in
obscurity.

Then prosecutors secretly received a tip that Emmanuel
was no longer in the FARC's control. Three days later,
Jose Gomez emerged again, saying he was actually the
boy's father and wanted him back.

The government put everything together with the help
of the 2006 testimony of Frank Pinchao, a former
police officer who escaped from nine years in
captivity to tell of the birth of Emmanuel, during
which he said rebel midwives accidentally broke the
boy's arm in a risky jungle delivery.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a Chavez foe who had
been humiliated by the prospect of a Chavez-brokered
handover, announced on New Year's Eve that Emmanuel
and Juan David might be the same boy.

Jose Gomez then confessed that he had no relation to
the child, saying a local FARC commander entrusted him
with the baby in exchange for extra money he never
provided. He said the FARC threatened him with death
if he didn't produce the child by Dec. 30, according
to the Colombian government.

The test comparing the boy's DNA to that of Clara
Rojas' mother proved Uribe's hunch.

"Juan David is Emmanuel," Iguaran said Friday.

The result is a major embarrassment for the FARC,
exposing its plan to release the three hostages as
either an elaborate ruse, internal disarray or
miscommunication between rebel commanders and the
decentralized units where the hostages are being held.
Colombia's government celebrated even as Venezuela
complained Colombia didn't let Venezuelan doctors
perform their own tests.

"This proves again that the FARC is lying to the
world, laughing in the face of national and
international public opinion by offering someone they
don't have and then blaming the government in a
Machiavellian and macabre way," Defense Minister Juan
Manuel Santos said.

In a statement dated Jan. 2 and posted Friday on a
pro-rebel Web site, FARC acknowledged that the boy in
Bogota is Emmanuel. But the statement charged that
Uribe ordered him "kidnapped" to sabotage Chavez's
efforts to broker the release. The FARC said it would
follow through on its promise to hand over Emmanuel's
mother and former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez to
Chavez, but did not give details. The authenticity of
the statement couldn't be determined but it was posted
to a site that frequently carries FARC communiques.

Iguaran said it would take another two weeks for a
European laboratory to confirm the preliminary DNA
analysis, after which child welfare agents would
determine whether the Rojas family should be granted
temporary custody.

Rojas's brother Ivan said the Rojas family "looks
forward to having him with us soon," but their top
priority remains the freedom of the boy's mother, who
has spent almost six years in captivity.

Rojas's elderly mother, also named Clara Rojas, sent a
message to her daughter while speaking with reporters
in Caracas, where she has been waiting for more than a
week for her daughter's return.

"Rest assured, that your baby is being cared for and
protected," said Rojas, holding back tears.
"Fortunately God is with this child. God is with
Emmanuel."

___

Associated Press Writer Tatiana Guerrero contributed
to this report.



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