Como se combate o populismo? "Com eleições", responde Fukuyama

[Jameson]

Colombian hijack ends peacefully

The hijacking did not appear to have a political motive
Two men believed to be a father and son have surrendered at an airfield near Colombia's capital, Bogota, after hijacking a plane on a domestic flight.
The men left the plane after talks with a priest and presidential official during which they gradually freed the 23 passengers and crew unharmed.

They are said to have boarded the propeller-driven plane with grenades.

The father is confined to a wheelchair and the hijack may have been related to a failed demand for compensation.

It seems he had been involved in an incident with police which left him disabled, local television channel RCN reports.

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott notes that four previous hijackings of aircraft in Colombia over the last five years were linked to Marxist rebels.

Mediation

The hijackers first released women and children, then the rest of the passengers, after four hours of talks.
They continued to hold crew members as negotiators, including a presidential representative and a Roman Catholic priest, mediated.

Colombian TV showed the hijackers eventually leaving the plane, the older man carried in his wheelchair.

The plane, owned by Colombian company Aires, had been flying from the town of Florencia in the province of Caqueta.

It landed at a military airfield near Bogota's civilian El Dorado Airport.

According to a passenger allowed to leave the plane early on, the hijackers said they had a bomb concealed in the wheelchair but they did not show it.

[Jameson]

Colombian Hijacked Plane Lands in Bogota Airport (Update3)

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- A Colombian hijacked airplane carrying 20 passengers and four crew members landed in Bogota's military airport where two men carrying grenades demanded to speak to President Alvaro Uribe, Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for the aviation authority said.

The Aerovias de Integracion Regional SA plane was hijacked in the country's south after leaving Florencia, the capital city of Caqueta province, en route to Bogota. The company declined to comment.

The two men asked to speak to Uribe and peace negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo, Gonzalez said. A man in a wheelchair with a grenade and his 23-year-old son, who was identified as Luis Fernando Ramirez, allowed women and children to leave the plane in Bogota, Caracol TV said.

An unidentified representative of the catholic church is in the plane negotiating with the hijackers, Caracol radio said.

A hijacking of a plane in February 2002 led to the breakup of peace talks between the Colombian government of then-President Andres Pastrana and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest insurgent group.