If you though the original Colombia hostage rescue conspiracy we considered was interesting, you haven't heard anything yet.
A quick update: After last week's spectacular hostage rescue operation that freed a number of high-profile Colombian and American hostages, a Swiss broadcaster reported that the entire thing had been more or less a theatrical ransom payment to the tune of $20 million. If true, it would surely provoke some awkward questions for Alvaro Uribe, who has sworn that he doesn't negotiate with terrorists.
Never one to let these sort of accusations stand unresponded, Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos has fired back at a Swiss interlocutor that had worked in a somewhat official capacity to negotiate with the FARC on behalf of a number of European countries. According to an interview with El Tiempo, Santos claims that Jean Pierre Gontard, who is also accused of being the source for the $20 million story, ferried almost $500,000 to the FARC. And how would Santos know this? The magic laptop, of course!
The Swiss Embassy in Bogota has responded by saying that during the time of the alleged transaction, Gontard was working on behalf of a multinational corporation to free two employees held by the FARC. The two employees were eventually freed, though no one -- not even the Colombians -- have been able to say whether or not a payment was made for them. They also noted that the alleged exchange took place during a time when the FARC were granted a large portion of Colombian territory as part of a plan to start peace negotiations.
Working through this, it doesn't seem like they have much on Gontard. The best they can say is that he helped a corporation pay to have their employees released during a period of time in which the Colombian government was in active contact with the FARC and had yet to started to address them solely as terrorists that needed to be defeated militarily. Moreover, it's the height of irony that Santos is accusing Gontard of paying ransom to the FARC as a way to distract attention from the fact that Santos himself may have played a role in paying a significantly larger ransom to the FARC, just more recently.
And really, blaming the Swiss? They're too staid and predictable to do anything this exciting. The Italians? Maybe, and they'd do it nicely dressed. The Spanish? Sure, as long as you didn't catch them during siesta time. But going after the Swiss is a tough sell, and it isn't likely to provoke much international rancor. Of course, left to his own devices, Santos will just send a few planes over to bomb Geneva.
