Colombians say know where U.S. hostages held

[Say_What]

Wonder how good their information is, the US recently offered a $5 million reward for info on this.

<clips>

BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov. 7 — The Colombian military has a good idea where Marxist rebels are holding three U.S. Defense Department contractors hostage but has not attempted to rescue them for fear of endangering their lives, the Colombian defense minister said on Friday.

''We have a pretty clear idea of where they are keeping them, but the prime concern of our armed forces has been the responsibility to avoid any operation which could put them in serious risk,'' Defense Minister Marta Lucia Ramirez told reporters.

Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell were captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in February when their light aircraft crashed on a southern Colombian jungle hillside while on a mission spying out drug crops.

The rebels, a 17,000-strong group known by the Spanish initials FARC, say the three civilians are CIA agents and have put them on a list of politicians and soldiers they want to swap for guerrillas held in government jails. They killed two other crew members who survived the crash -- a Colombian army sergeant and a U.S. Vietnam veteran.

The Colombian army, assisted by U.S. experts, launched a massive search operation for the men when they were captured, relatively close to a large military base. But the Colombians' record in such operations has been mixed, and FARC guerrillas killed 10 hostages as troops staged a botched rescue attempt in thick jungle in May.


<http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-07-101039.asp?reg=AMERICAS>

[Judi Lynn]

1. Once again we are left totally clueless

I can only remind myself that during the Reagan administration Cuban "exile" Otto Reich, Office of Public Diplomacy, was known to place bogus articles in papers all over the place, as well as sending bogus letters to the editors from non-existant high-ranking officials, as well as harrassing and intimidating U.S. reporters into a state of virtual shock.

Latin America the playground for U.S. covert operations for so long. I hate to think we will have to be 300 years old before we ever learn the story of what U.S. CIA and others actually DID to people with weaker governments and NO PROTECTION, while we sailed on blithely, completely unaware.

I hope the men are retrieved, and I hope when we get a clean President, we'll start cleaning up our national relations towards other countries.