A delegation of the Red Cross and the Venezuelan Government picked up the hostages Gloria Polanco Orlando Beltrán, Luis Eladio Pérez y Jorge Eduardo Gechem, kidnapped 6 years ago.

“We are very happy. In this moment we have the four (hostages) in our hands”, said Barbara Hinterman, Red Cross chief delegation in Bogota.

She added that “it seems that the health status allows to travel till Santo Domingo and then to Caracas”.

The liberation of the former parliamentarians was in an area of the Guaviare department, where Colombian Army suspeded its operation during 12 hours.

Helicopters took off in the middle of the morning from the Colombian city of San Jose to Guaviare to receive the former politicians.

“In the name of President Hugo Chavez I want to announce that we have the exact place where the four hostages are”, said Minister Ramón Rodriguez Chacin.

Mr. Rodríguez told he doesn’t know the health status of whom that will be released, but he warned that “there is intensive and heavy military operations in the area” where are the hostages, and he added “they are in danger”.

“FARC asked that no one else knows this coordinates; just me”, clarify Mr. Rodriguez in a press conference in Caracas, along with the Venezuelan Chancellor, Mr. Nicolas Maduro and parents of the hostages.

Mr. Maduro told that he spoke with Colombian authorities to facilitate the operation and suspend military operations.

The helicopters that will take to the four hostages will be in the place “at the most of two hours”, to avoid paramilitary or Colombian army force operations, explain both Venezuelan ministers.

On February 2, FARC announced they will release the former members of Congress  Gloria Polanco de Lozada, Luis Eladio Pérez Bonilla y Orlando Beltrán Cuellar, and in a statement divulged last Saturday confirmed the fourth hostage is the former senator Jorge Eduardo Gechem Turbay, who is in a critic health situation according different sources.

Four days ago, Sergio Perez, a son of the former senador Luis Eladio Perez, ask to the Colombian President, Mr. Alvaro Uribe, the end of the military operations around the area near to the zone where the hostages are.

Although nine internacional companies were pre-qualified, one from Germany and Ukraine finally decide to no participate. U.S. firms were not interested in this space initiative.

Meanwhile, the seven projects now are in hand of the Chilean Airforce and will be sized up by military and civil personnel.

On april 9 of  2007, and after nine months of preparation, the Chilean satellite project work team, lead by Aviation Subsecretary, Raul Vergara, sent the bases of the bidding to the 25 world main spatial companies to make a satellite system to Chile.

The satellite Project aims to study natural resources, and the behaviour of oceans, snow, rivers and forest with a periodicity of two or three days.

Resides, the objectives of the Defence Ministry are to obtain a satellite with a lifetime of five years and learn the technology of fabrication to integrate the industry, universities and local cientific community to this process.

At the end of Ricardo Lagos’ government, the project named “Satellite System to the observation of the earth”, was granted to the French firm EADS. The pre-agreement was signed on march 3 of 2007, in Michelle Bachelet’s government, and implicated a public investment of 45 million dollars.

However, in that time some politicians criticize the transparency of the process, specially from the Defence Committee of the Deputy chamber, lead by Patricio Hales, one of them most critic alon with Jorge Burgos.

The mains objection aims to the quickness to define the company in charge and to no consider several companies that also applied.

Then President Bachelet decided to cancel the process that she inherited from the previous administration and perform a new international bid.

This project is the second Chilean effort to have own technology in space matters, after the launching of the FASat-Alfa y FASat-Bravo by the Air Force in the 90’s.

About this new process the deputy Alejandro Hales said he is satisfied because its transparency and are more companies is the current bid. Nonetheless he reproved that Defence Ministry does not public the process to receive the seven offers.

“When we knew the news, we felt a big joy, but with a mix of feelings also, because they leave behind a big group of people”, said Deyanira Ortiz de Beltran, Beltran Cuellar’s wife, in an statement spread by the state-controlled TV net Venezolana de Television, from the Caracas airport.

The parents travelled to Caracas while hundred of thousand of Colombians were on a massive demonstration against the guerrilla groups, as the same as in several cities around the world, asking for the liberation of the whole hostages they have.

The Colombian Senator Piedad Cordova said “we don’t have any idea (about the details of the operation to receive the hostages) and that information will be handle directly by President Chavez”.

By the way, Carolina Perez, Luis Eladio Perez’ daughter is trusting to meet as soon as possible his father: “(I wish) first welcome him to the life, to the freedom, hold him, and that he tell us how was that experience and telling him what about our life without him”, told Perez trying to explain what she will does when she see her father after seven years of captivity.

Meanwhile, Astrid Betancourt, sister of the former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, said she is very excited because the release of the three Colombian politicians, but worried about the future of her sister.

“Ingrid will be the only women as a Farc hostage (…) the priority should be women and sick people. Ingrid gather both conditions, is a woman and has a delicate health condition”, said by phone from Paris.

“We wait that Ingrid will be the next hostage freed”, she added.

“I feel the happiest woman in the world and the most proud of my baby Emmanuel. He is divine, he has a beautiful looking”, said affected the ex FARC hostage.

The three years old boy was granted temporally to Clara Rojas by the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF), where he was since 2005.

Elvira Forero, Director of ICBF, a child care government office, said Emmanuel was granted temporally to his mother while they complete all legal procedures to Clara Rojas will assume formally his custody.

Forero expressed that “yesterday they performed a six hour session of knowledge to re-start and retake those links between he and his family, to give him the standard of life that he deserves”.

By MP