News-Info-Alerts

Re: Missing Americans in the Jungles of Colombia

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 23, 2003

Strangeness in the jungles of Colombia... reminiscent of the early days of Vietnam.

"U.S. Aiding in Search for Three Missing Americans

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2003 -- U.S. experts are helping the Colombian armed forces search for three Americans captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, embassy officials said today.

A single-engine U.S. government Cessna 208 crashed Feb. 13. When Colombian forces reached the crash site, they found the bodies of two crewmembers, one Colombian and one American. The embassy is not releasing the name of the American at his family's request.

Three other Americans are being held by the terrorist guerrillas, known by their Spanish acronym, FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). The three are civilian contractors to the U.S. government, embassy officials said. The American embassy is not releasing the names of the individuals out of concern for their safety, said embassy spokesman Gerald McLoughlin.

McLoughlin would not detail the assistance U.S. personnel are providing the Colombians.

News reports indicate that the plane crashed in an area long considered a FARC stronghold. The U.S. State Department has listed the FARC as a terrorist organization. The FARC depends on kidnap for ransom and the illicit drug trade to finance its operations. "

"Bush Characterizes Slaying of Downed U.S. Plane's Passenger as 'clearly an Execution'
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush termed at least one of the deaths at a plane crash site in Colombia "clearly an execution."

Three Americans apparently were seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, after their U.S. government plane crashed Feb. 13 during an intelligence mission in rebel territory. A fourth American and a Colombian army sergeant were killed at the site of the crash, Colombia's army chief has said.

Speaking to Telemundo, a Spanish-language TV network, Bush agreed, without specifying which man he was referring to: "One man had a bullet hole in the back of his head - clearly an execution."

The interview was taped Wednesday and aired Thursday

"We are dealing with cold-blooded killers that need to be treated as cold-blooded killers," Bush said.

The president said the United States is sharing intelligence to help the Colombian government rescue the three American captives.

U.S. officials have appealed to the captors for proof that the captives are alive. The American who was killed, the first of his countrymen to die in Colombia's war while on official business, has not been identified.

U.S. aid to Colombia originally was restricted to counternarcotics activities. But at the request of the Bush administration, Congress recently allowed Colombia to use the equipment and U.S.-trained troops to battle insurgents. Washington has deepened its involvement in Colombia's conflict in recent months, sending 70 U.S. Green Berets to train Colombian troops to protect an oil pipeline carrying crude belonging to Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum.

The FARC and two other rebel groups, one leftist and one rightist, are on the State Department list of foreign terror organizations. A succession of elected Colombian governments have fought rebel activity for 39 years. About 3,500 people, mainly civilians, die in the fighting each year.

© 2003, Media General Inc. "

"Colombia Rebels Admit Kidnapping 3 Americans After Crash
By JUAN FORERO

OGOTÁ, Colombia, Feb. 22 — Marxist rebels confirmed today that they had kidnapped three American government employees after their plane crash-landed in a jungle thicket, and described them as C.I.A. employees.

A communiqué sent by e-mail to news organizations in Colombia by the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also demanded an end to the vast search-and-rescue operation for the three Americans. The message said the rebels "can only guarantee the life and well-being of the three gringo officers in our power if the Colombian Army immediately calls off operations."

The rebels also claimed that the Cessna 208 in which the men had been traveling when it crashed 250 miles south of Bogotá on Feb. 13 was shot down, contradicting American officials, who said mechanical error caused the crash.

A United States Embassy official would not comment on the communiqué, but said that the search continued for the Americans, whose identities have not been disclosed. "There is a massive Colombian search and rescue operation," the official said. "The United States is assisting it."

The rebel group, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, a force of 18,000 fighters that has been waging war on the state since 1964, claimed that the Americans were Central Intelligence Agency operatives spying on the rebels. Two days earlier, a posting on the rebels' de facto Internet site, Red Resistencia, said the Americans were searching for rebel captives, including a Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, while laying the groundwork for a "surgical strike" against the rebel leadership.

The Cessna 208 crashed several hundred yards from where two rebel units were holding a meeting, a high-ranking Colombian military official said Tuesday.

The rebels killed one American who had been aboard the plane, shooting him in the head, American officials say. A Colombian Army sergeant was also killed, shot in the chest. Colombian military officials have suggested the men were killed execution-style, but American officials said there was some evidence the men died in a shootout with rebels. The other three Americans were then taken into the jungle.

American officials have refused to divulge details about the mission the men were on, but they have said the plane was used in counternarcotics operations and that the Americans were working for the Pentagon. The State Department has denied that the men were working for the C.I.A., though Colombian military officials have said the occupants of the plane were on an intelligence mission.

The Colombian military is using at least 2,500 troops to comb through the cattle fields and jungles of Caquetá Province, where the rebels have operated for years, hiding kidnapping victims and controlling the drug trade. American soldiers and intelligence experts, aided by reconnaissance aircraft, are assisting in the search. The Pentagon said today that President Bush had ordered an additional 150 soldiers to help in the search, bringing the number involved to more than 400.

The search includes the use of Black Hawk helicopters provided by the United States for antidrug operations, antinarcotics troops and Colombian special forces, General Jorge Mora, commander of the armed forces, said late Friday.

He warned the rebels that they would, one day, pay for the kidnappings and the killings, the first of American government employees in Colombia's drug war. "They should know that sooner or later, international justice or Colombian justice will be served," he said.

The Bush administration has demanded that the rebels immediately release the Americans. Mr. Bush first publicly spoke about the kidnappings and killings in an interview broadcast on Thursday on Spanish-language Telemundo.

He called the death of the American "clearly an execution" and said, "We are dealing with cold-blooded killers that need to be treated as cold-blooded killers."

American congressmen who visited Colombia last week said that the rebels could expect a swift response from the United States.

"I don't think there's any question that this precipitous action by the FARC is going to meet with very strong retaliation," Representative Thomas M. Davis III, a Virginia Republican, said on Thursday. "Precisely what happens is being discussed as we speak, but they've made a very grave error."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company "