Trick frees hostages in Colombia
Published 10:46 pm Wednesday, July 2, 2008
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors Wednesday in a daring helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired.
Betancourt, who was seized on the campaign trail six years ago, appeared thin but healthy as she strode down the stairs of a military plane and held her mother in a long embrace. She said she still aspires to the presidency.
“God, this is a miracle,” Betancourt said. “Such a perfect operation is unprecedented.”
Eleven Colombian police and soldiers were also freed in the rescue, the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which considered the four hostages their most valuable bargaining chips. The FARC is already reeling from the deaths of key commanders and the loss of much of the territory it once held.
The Americans — Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — were flown directly to the United States to reunite with their families and undergo tests and treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Kidnapped in February 2003, they had been the longest-held American hostages in the world.
The trio appeared healthy in a video shown on Colombian television, though Brownfield, who met with them at a provincial military base, said two of the three — he didn’t specify which — were suffering from the jungle malady leishmaniasis and “looking forward to modern medical treatment.”
Gonsalves’ father, George, was mowing the yard of his Hebron, Conn., home when an excited neighbor relayed the news he had seen on television: “I didn’t know how to stop my lawn mower. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it.”
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said military intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrilla ranks and led the local commander in charge of the hostages, alias Cesar, to believe they were going to take them to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas’ supreme leader.
The hostages, who had been divided in three groups, were taken to a rendezvous where two disguised MI-17 helicopters piloted by Colombian military agents were waiting. Betancourt said her hands and feet were bound, which she called “humiliating.”
But when they were airborne, she looked behind her and saw Cesar, who had treated her so cruelly for so many years, lying on the floor blindfolded.
“The chief of the operation said, ‘We’re the national army. You’re free,’ ” she said. “The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn’t believe it.”
Santos said Cesar and another rebel on board would face charges. The other rebel captors retreated into the jungle, he said, and the army let them escape “in hopes that they will free the rest of the hostages,” believed to number about 700.
