[A-List] US imperialism: Colombia

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

 Colombian rebels want swap deal for US hostages

Ibon Villelabeitia in Bogota
Wednesday February 26, 2003
The Guardian

Colombian rebels have declared three kidnapped Americans to be "prisoners of
war" and said the men would only be released as part of a prisoner exchange
with the Colombian government.

The United States, which has described the abducted Americans as civilian
contractors working for the defence department, has demanded their immediate
release.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) captured the Americans on
February 13 after their light plane crash-landed in southern Colombian
jungle during what Colombian officials said was an intelligence mission.

The army said the rebels had killed one American, and a Colombian soldier
crew member and took away the other three US citizens.

Farc holds about 80 high-profile Colombian prisoners - including soldiers
and politicians - it wants to exchange for 3,000 guerrillas serving time in
state prisons.

It has said it wants the government to withdraw troops from part of the
countryside as a condition for the prisoner swap. Some of the Farc hostages
have been held for more than three years in makeshift jungle prisons.

The 17,000-strong Farc, which is fighting the government in a four-decade
guerrilla war, has long said it considers US personnel involved in
Colombia's US-funded war on drugs to be military targets.

In a statement Farc said the capture of the three Americans was proof that
the "expansionist and imperialist gringo state" was meddling in Colombia.

It is the first time Farc has killed or kidnapped Americans working for the
US government, which has spent $2bn (£1.3bn) in recent years in mostly
military aid for Bogota's offensive against cocaine. Last year Washington
lifted restrictions stopping Colombians using that aid against rebels.

The three Americans, whom rebels have called "gringo CIA agents", join other
kidnap victims, who include regional lawmakers, a former defence minister
and former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt.

The hostages are held in barbed-wire prisons deep in the jungle, their only
messages to the outside world brief, homemade videotapes occasionally
released by rebels.

President Alvaro Uribe, who took office last August on pledges to defeat the
rebels, has strenuously rejected Farc demands to pull out troops as a
condition for the prisoner exchange.

Mr Uribe, whose father was killed during a botched Farc kidnapping attempt,
was a strong critic of the decision by the then president, Andres Pastrana,
to hand over a demilitarised area to the Farc to hold peace talks. Those
talks collapsed last February.

He has also refused to meet another Farc demand to create a senior
government team to negotiate a swap, insisting instead that the deal should
be negotiated through the United Nations.