This story still pisses me off. It’s been this long, and those guys are still being held captive? I have slightly more hope that they will eventually be released as the FARC slowly diminishes, but who knows. Private contractors do not add up to squat in this world, when you get captured. Please note the Crescent guys that were captured in Iraq in 06. -Head Jundi
Pawns In The Jungles Of Colombia
June 2, 2008
By Jackson Diehl
Though it may be losing the battle in Congress over free trade withColombia, the Bush administration is close to recording a major success inColombia itself. Thanks in part to billions of dollars in U.S. aid andtraining for the Colombian army, the FARC terrorist group — which hasravaged Colombia’s countryside for four decades — is close to collapse.Since March it has lost three of its top seven commanders, includinglegendary leader Manuel Marulanda. Laptops containing its most sensitivesecrets have been seized by the Colombian government, and foot soldiers aredeserting in droves.
Yet this achievement has come at painful costs — some of which areshamefully little known to Americans. That point was brought home to merecently by Luis Eladio Pérez, a spirited survivor of Colombia’s war againstthe FARC who has made the rescue of three of its American victims a personalcause.American victims? Don’t be surprised if you have never heard of MarcGonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell; The Post has published onlythree substantial stories about them in the past five years. All three areU.S. citizens who were working for Pentagon contractor Northrop Grumman whentheir surveillance plane crashed in a remote Colombian jungle on Feb. 13,2003. Since then, they have been hostages of the FARC, confined with chainsand forced to endure a nightmarish life of isolation, disease and brutality.The State Department and U.S. Southern Command routinely say that obtainingthe men’s release is a top priority. In practice not much has been done overthe years, largely because any action would be difficult or contrary tolarger U.S. interests. The Americans are among the most prized of the morethan 700 hostages held by the FARC; they are heavily guarded and nearlyimpossible to find in Colombia’s vast, triple-canopy jungle.Even worse, from the perspective of the captives, their government and mediararely even speak about them. It’s not just The Post: Both President Bushand Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have visited Colombia in the pastyear, but neither mentioned Gonsalves, Howes and Stansell in their preparedpublic statements.Pérez, a former Colombian senator, could not help but feel the men’sdistress. At the time Bush visited, Pérez was chained by the neck to Howe.Taken hostage himself in June 2001, Pérez lived with the Americans from late2003 to late 2004, and then again from October 2006 until his release inFebruary. The 55-year-old politician was freed in a deal orchestrated byVenezuelan President Hugo Chávez and appears to be in remarkably good healthnow. But he is anguished about those he left behind. “It hurts me to be hereenjoying coffee and knowing that they are there in the jungle chained toeach other,” Pérez told me. “I’m not happy to think of them rotting. Ihaven’t stopped one day trying to help them.”Pérez came to Washington in part because the men gave him letters addressedto President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the presidential candidatesand The Post, among others. FARC guards confiscated the letters, so Pérez istrying to deliver their messages himself. “They are asking the country toplease not abandon them,” he said. “They are saying that they love theircountry, they love the flag, that they are rotting in the jungle and pleasedo something for them.”What could be done? Pérez wishes that Bush would consider the FARC’s demandthat two of its members imprisoned in the United States — including onesentenced in January to 60 years for conspiring to hold the Americanshostage — be exchanged for the three men. He points out that ColombianPresident Álvaro Uribe has expressed a willingness to exchange FARCprisoners for hostages and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy haspromised to accept FARC detainees temporarily in France if it will lead tothe release of Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidatewho holds French citizenship.Such suggestions get a cold reception in Washington, and for good reason.Among other things, the release of convicted FARC terrorists would underminewhat has been a successful extradition program between Colombia and theUnited States and give a political boost to a crumbling movement. Theimplosion of the FARC has been a huge setback to Chávez, who was trying torehabilitate it and use it as a vehicle to export his “Bolivarianrevolution” to Colombia.Therein may lie the Americans’ best hope. Pérez confirms that the FARC “islooking for a political solution” in conjunction with Chávez. He’s hopingits leaders can be convinced that such an end must begin with a unilateralrelease of the remaining hostages. “The FARC must make a decision,” Pérezsaid. If Betancourt or other hostages die, he added, “it will be the end ofthe FARC.” That would be a triumph for Colombia and for the Bushadministration — but not much consolation for three American families.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060101914.html
The Website for the three hostages.
