During his weekly radio and television address on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian FARC rebels to lay down their weapons and free dozens of hostages. This came as a surprise to many since Chavez has previously called on world governments to remove FARC from their terrorist lists.

But a FARC statement posted Sunday on a sympathetic Web site suggested the group was far from considering laying down its arms.

Written by rebel leader Luciano Marin Arango, alias Ivan Marquez, and dated June 5, the statement demanded that new elections be called to oust Colombia’s government and Congress.

The FARC’s “strategic objective is the taking of power for the people,” the statement said.

President Chavez describes FARC as a legitimate insurgent force. The group has said in the past that they would release their hostages in exchange for guerillas imprisoned in Colombia and the US, and Chavez himself has been successful in acting as mediator between FARC and the Colombian government. Recently, however, Colombia’s US-backed government has accused the Chavez of financing and supplying the rebels, using doctored files to tie him to the group.

An illegal strike at a FARC camp inside Ecuadorian borders by Colombia halted productive talks between all parties and prompted both President Chavez and President Correa of Ecuador to send troops to their borders to protect their national sovereignty. Since then, diplomatic relations have not been fully restored between Colombia and Ecuador, and a US plan to overthrow Chavez through the proxy state of Colombia has been revealed.

Though it may seem like a departure, or even abandonment of his principles, Chavez’s call for reconciliation could prove positive for the revolution by undermining the overall agenda of the US government in the region. The decades-long civil war in Colombia is the kind of “destabilizing” conflict which the US could use to justify acts of provocation against leftist governments in Latin America.

“You in the FARC should know something: You have become an excuse for the empire to threaten all of us,” Chavez said in reference to the American Empire. “The day that peace arrives in Colombia, the empire will have no excuses.” Addressing new FARC leader Alfonso Cano, Chavez said, “I think the time has come to free all of the hostages you have. It would be a great, humanitarian gesture. In exchange for nothing.”

In a separate address, Chavez warned that George W. Bush “will be much more dangerous during the last months that he has left,” but discussed his desire to work closely with the next US president. Speaking of Obama and McCain, President Chavez said, “they have begun using my name in the domestic campaign. One of them said he would talk with Chavez and another said he wouldn’t. For me that’s not important,” Chavez added. “The only thing I ask of the American people is to have the common sense to elect a president who devotes himself first to solving the problems of the United States and not planning on global imperial domination.”

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