News-Info-Alerts

Re: Americans Captured and Executed

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 15, 2003

No information on who the personnel aboard the craft are.

"2 Bodies Found In Colombia Crash
BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb. 13, 2003

Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's president, has taken a hard line against the rebels who've warred with the government for nearly four decades.  (AP)

If the survivors were captured, it would mark the first time in Colombia's decades-long civil war that Americans on U.S. government business had been taken by the insurgents.

(CBS) A U.S. government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed in southern Colombia, apparently killing two of those aboard, and officials feared the survivors were captured by leftist rebels.

Officials with the state prosecutor's office spotted two bodies amid the wreckage of the plane, the government office, which is responsible in Colombia for investigating deaths, said Thursday. U.S. Embassy officials said they had no comment on the report.

The Cessna was flying from Bogota to the Florencia area, 235 miles to the south, when radio contact was lost eight minutes before landing, Colombia's Civil Aviation agency said.

CBS News State Department Reporter Charles Wolfson reports the plane carried four U.S. citizens and one Colombian. All were involved in a counter-narcotics operation.

Earlier, a Colombian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that it was feared they had been taken by rebels. Other officials suggested those aboard the Cessna may have been hiding, if they survived the crash, to avoid capture by the rebels.

The spokesman said the American government plane, a single-engine Cessna 208, "crashed near Florencia during an attempted emergency landing shortly before 9 a.m. this morning. The cause of the crash was apparently engine failure."

After getting word of the crash, U.S. officials scrambled rescue teams to the sweltering plains of the region, but at least one report said rebels had captured those aboard and announced, "We have them! We have them!" in an intercepted radio transmission.

There was no statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's main leftist rebel group. A Colombian military official reported the transmission and said FARC rebels had apparently found the plane.

U.S. officials refused to discuss the mission or identities of those aboard the single-engine Cessna, which went down as it approached Florencia, 235 miles south of Bogota, the capital. The Colombian Armed Forces' high command said the plane was on an intelligence operation.

It was not clear which arm of the U.S. government operates the crashed plane. A host of U.S. agencies and government contractors are in Colombia. They operate radar stations that track drug-smuggling flights, fumigate drug crops with airplanes and assist Colombian security forces in other anti-drug operations. Sources said those aboard the crashed plane were not Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

If the survivors were captured, it would mark the first time in Colombia's decades-long civil war that Americans on U.S. government business had been taken by the insurgents.

Cropdusting pilots contracted by the U.S. State Department have been waging a massive fumigation campaign against the drug crops. But the State Department contractor, DynCorp, said its personnel were not aboard the crashed plane.

Still, DynCorp spokeswoman Caroline Longanecker said the company was helping with rescue and recovery. DynCorp maintains search-and-rescue teams aboard Black Hawk helicopters in its area of operations as a precaution.

A Colombian military official said Colombian military Black Hawks were also being sent to the area, but then were ordered to return, with U.S. officials being in charge of the case. "

AND

"
Colombian Officials Condemn Killing of American, Colombian Shot in Rebel Territory After Plane Crash

By Vanessa Arrington Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 15, 2003

FLORENCIA, Colombia (AP) - An American and a Colombian were executed at close range after their plane crashed and was apparently found by leftist rebels, officials said.

Three other people in the aircraft, all Americans, were apparently kidnapped by the rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the U.S. State Department said Friday.

The single-engine Cessna airplane went down Thursday while on an intelligence mission in the region, which is swarming with rebels. The pilot had reported engine trouble shortly before the crash.

The chief of Colombia's Armed Forces, Gen. Jorge Mora, told reporters that the American and Colombian whose bodies were found in the wreckage were "executed, in an act of extreme cruelty." Both died from the gunshot wounds, officials said.

On Friday, the State Department said the plane was a U.S. counter-drug aircraft. It said it had reports that the surviving Americans were being held by the FARC.

The United States has backed a massive campaign to locate and destroy the region's drug crops, which are a key source of income for the rebels. Plantations of coca - the main ingredient of cocaine - are widespread in this area of humid plains and jungle-covered mountains.

Colombian troops and U.S. officials searched Friday for the survivors, but officials said the area was heavily mined and four Colombian soldiers were reported injured.

"There is a massive effort under way in a very unfriendly part of the country," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.

According to one report based on a radio interception, rebels quickly arrived on the scene of the plane crash and captured the men.

"If these reports are accurate, we demand the crew members be released unharmed immediately," State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said .

The Americans were contractors for the U.S. military's Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. government officials said in Washington.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the dead Colombian man was an army sergeant. The identities of those aboard haven't been released.

The FARC was also blamed for an explosion Friday in the city of Neiva that blew up a house and killed 15 people, including eight policemen investigating a reported rebel plot to assassinate Uribe.

Army troops patrolled the region's main highway, hoping to intercept the rebels if they tried to move the men out of the area by road. The army closed the road between the towns of El Doncello and Puerto Rico - near where the plane was believed to have crashed - for several hours late Thursday, according to local residents.

Washington has been moving beyond simply fighting drug trafficking to helping the Colombian government battle the insurgents by providing training, intelligence and other support.

U.S. special forces troops in eastern and central Colombia are training the Colombian army in counterinsurgency tactics, and Washington is planning to share intelligence on the rebels with Colombia.

Dozens of companies have contracts with the U.S. government to maintain radar stations that track drug flights, fly crop-dusting planes that destroy drug crops and provide other services to Colombian security forces.

The FARC and the National Liberation Army have fought the government for nearly 40 years. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, die each year in the fighting.


© 2003, Media General Inc. "