Next, I wanted to post a little update on the Ingrid Betancourt/Clara Rojas hostage drama in Colombia.

Sadly, as I predicted, the hostage release never came about.  An international committee consisting of Hugo Chavez, Nestor Kirchner (former president of Argentina and husband to current president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner) and Oliver Stone (!) waited for several days with helicopters for the release, but it never came.  And this is where the story gets really bizarr-o.

The FARC had said they would release three prisoners--Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel, and former congresswomen Consuelo Gonzalez.  When they backed out of the release, they claimed that Colombia's President Uribe had scuttled the deal by allowing military operations in the area of the proposed release.  Uribe had his own interesting little hypothesis:  the FARC did not have Emmanuel after all, instead he was in a government run orphanage.

Turns out that Uribe was right!  This is such a bizarre story.  Apparently, two years ago when Emmanuel was 11 months old, he was taken from the jungle and his mother, and placed with a peasant farmer.  The farmer in turn gave the boy to the orphanage, claiming to be his uncle.  Surprise, surprise, the farmer showed up in December BEGGING for Emmanuel, now claiming to be his father.  This tipped off the authorities, and eventually the farmer confessed the whole story.  (He's now in protective custody, for what's that worth in Colombia.)  You can read the story for yourself here.

DNA tests of Emmanuel and his grandmother and uncle confirmed the family tie.  The results are currently being confirmed by a European lab, and then he will probably be placed with the Rojas family.  What a bittersweet turn for Clara's mother.  She still doesn't have her daughter back, but she has her grandson finally.  The hostages hear regular updates from their families over the radio, and Mrs. Rojas has already told Clara that they will love and care for the boy until she is released.  This is probably the first news Clara has had of her son for years.  Hopefully, this gives her new strength.

(You can read the backstory of Emmanuel's birth here . It sounds like a heartbreaking situation for Clara Rojas, not having access to her son and being totally dependent on her captors to see him.  Then to have him taken away!  My heart hurts for her.)

Its is expected that all this drama and embarrassment for the FARC has delayed any prisoner release indefinitely.  What a horrible scenario all around.