Former hostage reports pact between rebels and Chávez

Colombian engineer and geologist Jorge Andrés Sierra, who was held as a hostage by the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) for 20 months, last weekend said the guerrilla troops took him to Venezuela because they allegedly had a pact with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and because they deemed Venezuela "a free territory."

Sierra, who went into exile following his liberation by ELN, told radio show "Colombia Universal" that he was taken to the Venezuelan jungle because the rebels said Venezuela was "a friendly territory," Efe reported.

He added that the guerrilla troops, who held other six Colombian citizens as hostages in Venezuelan territory, claimed they had "a pact of non-aggression" with Chávez. Under the deal, the rebels undertake "not to kidnap Venezuelans, while Chávez allows them to be in Venezuela."

Both ELN and the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) endorse Chávez's political ideas, and have asked the Venezuelan ruler for support to launch a peace process and release hostages.

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IISS: The FARC financed Chávez before 1999

10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.