 The Miami Herald has the update on former FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt's reunion with her family, after the Colombian government puts one over on the FARC guerrillas and frees several people who were held by them for more than five years, including the former presidential candidate, Betancourt, and three Florida contractors. The New York Times also offers its take on Betancourt's ordeal. [Betancourt is pictured at left after her rescue- AP]
From the Herald account of the hoodwink raid:
BOGOTA -- The rescuers came wearing Che Guevara T-shirts and logos declaring them delegates of some obscure organization. They didn't look much like an international humanitarian brigade. And they weren't.
They were the Colombian intelligence agents who pulled off ''Operation Checkmate,'' one of the greatest military capers in Colombia's history -- a mission that would finally liberate the world's most famous hostage from the hands of leftist rebels in the jungle.Without firing a single shot. ''Who are these people? What kind of international commission is this?'' former hostage and once-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt remembered thinking. ``Are we clowns in another circus? I didn't want any part of it.''
In a military operation described as ''unprecedented'' and ''perfect,'' the Colombian armed forces Wednesday infiltrated the top command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- Latin America's oldest insurgency -- and tricked rebels into handing over Betancourt, held hostage for six years, and three American defense contractors, held for five years.
It was an effort the White House says it knew about and helped support. The hostages, the rebel group's most-prized possessions, were held in chains in jungle camps in the hopes the government would swap them for guerrilla prisoners. The three Americans -- Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves -- were scuttled out of the Andean nation and were set to arrive Wednesday night in San Antonio. ... Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the ruse that also freed 11 Colombian soldiers and police officers was straight out of an action flick, and added that the mission garnered even more spoils: ''César,'' Betancourt's guerrilla warden all these years, was captured and placed under arrest.
More details of the raid: More details from the defense minister
He said the military infiltrated the FARC's top hierarchy and arranged for a transfer of hostages on the ruse that they were going to be handed over to Alfonso Cano, the rebel group's maximum leader.
... The government mole arranged for the hostages to be brought together from three different locations to one camp, and then taken in a helicopter the FARC believed belonged to a friendly aid group that would transport the hostages to Cano.
... The chopper was piloted by intelligence officers dressed as leftist sympathizers. Betancourt said the hostages thought they were being picked up by some kind of international humanitarian organization to be taken to the FARC high command.
''Our hearts broke. More captivity. Another transfer,'' Betancourt said in a dramatic press conference minutes after embracing her mother. ``Every time we heard helicopters my pulse would race. Run, hide, gather your things. But this helicopter was white. It was exciting.
''It was surreal,'' Betancourt said, describing the bizarre white helicopter and the strangely dressed men who came for her. ``They had logos that certified they were a delegation of who-knows-what.''
She and the others were handcuffed as they boarded the chopper, which she described as ''humiliating.'' Once aboard, something happened so fast Betancourt missed it.
But then she saw ''César'' -- the ''cruel despot'' who guarded her -- subdued on the floor of the helicopter. The pilots turned and said the words she and the others had waited so long for:
``We are from the army. You are free.''
''The helicopter almost crashed; we jumped, we screamed and we cried,'' she said, lavishing praise on the military, the defense minister and President Alvaro Uribe.
Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002, the contractors in 2003. OK, now for the conspiracy theories...
The raid was more than a year in the making, as the Colombian "mole" ingratiated himself with the rebels. And the Bush administration says it knew about the planning. And there was John McCain, just happening to be in town to dress up in his Navy cap and meet the victorious president of Colombia, Alvaro Urive, who has had his troubles lately, but who along with the Colombian Army was hailed by his countrymen yesterday. Too convenient? Maybe.
 In Colombia, John McCain shows off his "Top Gun" look
McCain does have his Colombian ties:
The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres." Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.
And McCain is under fire from labor leaders over his support for a free trade pact with Colombia (the stated reason for his trip south.) But so far, there's not much more to the suspicion that McCain's trip was more than luckily timed, besides suspicion.
The New York Times is calling McCain's FARC convergence a "happy coincidence," but not everyone is so sure. The skeptics are lining up online, with many awaiting the gauzy photo-ops of McCain with Colombian president Uribe, and with the rescued hostages. Even many media types were scratching their heads this week over the McCain trip, just before the Fourth of July, to do what, push unpopular free trade? It's definitely a head scratcher, and given what we've witnessed over the last four years, one could easily see the Bush administration briefing their candidate on this being a great week to go to Colombia...
| Labels: Colombia, FARC, free trade, international news, John McCain, terrorism |
