Castro Helped Free Brother Of Former Colombia President

BOGOTA, Colombia - Still holding sway with radical groups around the hemisphere, Cuban President Fidel Castro played a primary role in freeing the kidnapped brother of Colombia's former president, Cesar Gaviria, authorities revealed yesterday.

Two Cuban emissaries served as intermediaries to obtain the freedom of Juan Carlos Gaviria from leftist radicals, then escorted eight members of the group to exile in Cuba.

Castro's help "was fundamental," Police Chief Rosso Jose Serrano said.

Efforts to resolve the April 2 kidnapping involved several nations and drew in some of Colombia's most prominent citizens, including writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with whom the kidnappers exchanged a lively series of messages. Garcia Marquez, who maintains a residence in Cuba, is one of Castro's most intimate friends.

Cesar Gaviria, who served as president of Colombia from 1990 to 1994 and now is secretary general of the Organization of American States, had cordial relations with Castro while he was president.

Last week, the OAS General Assembly, in a major boost to Castro, condemned the widening of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba under the Helms-Burton law.

In Washington, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., called yesterday for a congressional investigation into the terms of a "deal" struck between Gaviria and Castro's representatives in Panama.

Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, suggested Gaviria may have agreed to work toward OAS approval of the resolution rebuking the United States for the Helms-Burton. In return, Castro would offer sanctuary to the eight Colombian kidnappers.

Gaviria yesterday emphatically denied using his office to secure the release of his brother.

"I can state emphatically that at no time did I, as Secretary General of the OAS, act in any way that could be construed as using my office to secure the release of my brother," Gaviria said. "The outcome was not the fruit of any diplomatic agreement with any government."

Diaz-Balart said the United States, as a member of the OAS, had an obligation to "find out what the terms are of the deal between Gaviria and the Castro government that got Castro to request (and obtain) the release of Gaviria's brother and to accept the kidnappers into Cuba."

U.S. and OAS officials who attended the OAS General Assembly in Panama discounted versions of a tit-for-tat deal. They noted the resolution criticizing Helms-Burton was proposed by Canada and Mexico, and Gaviria has only limited powers to influence the vote as secretary general.

The Cuban emissaries helped negotiate the swap of Gaviria, a 37-year-old architect, for the asylum of the top members of the Jorge Eliecer Gaitan Movement, known by its Spanish initials as JEGA, authorities said.

Members of JEGA - a splinter group of the National Liberation Army - "are pro-Castro to the death," said Serrano. "These people are anarchic."

A flurry of efforts to save the hostage's life came after the kidnappers said in a recent communique that if the House of Representatives absolved President Ernesto Samper of charges he took drug money from the Cali Cartel in 1994 "we will execute Juan Carlos Gaviria."

Worried that Gaviria was about to be killed, Samper and Gaviria apparently intervened on Wednesday to delay a vote in the House.

Hours after Samper was cleared, angry Clinton administration officials began studying a list of possible sanctions and voiced "keen displeasure with the very sorry state" of U.S.-Colombian ties.

The State Department, in unusually blunt language, said that Samper's absolution by lawmakers would not resolve a "crisis of confidence" in Colombia.

The administration decertified Colombia on March 1, asserting that its government was no longer considered a trustworthy ally in the battle against drug traffickers.

Possible sanctions against Colombia under consideration include: lifting preferential tariffs on Colombian exports to the United States; revoking U.S. visas from more government officials and business people implicated in trafficking; and canceling landing rights for Colombian airlines now servicing the United States.