FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas — Among the smiles and hugs shared by three American hostages freed last week from rebels in Colombia and their families, one of the men on Monday angrily denounced their captors as “terrorists with a capital ‘T.’”
Marc Gonsalves said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, of FARC, which held him and two other U.S. military contractors in captivity for more than five years, refuses to acknowledge human rights and rejects democracy.
“I want to send a message to the FARC,” Gonsalves said. “FARC, you guys are terrorists. You deny that you are, you say with words that you’re not terrorists, but your words don’t have any value. Don’t tell us that you’re not terrorists, show us that you’re not terrorists.”
Gonsalves made the remarks at a ceremony welcoming him and two other U.S. military contractors — Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — home after their time in captivity.
Gonsalves, who was much thinner than he seemed in a pre-captivity picture on display at the ceremony, said he believed the guerrilla group was punishing others because the three men and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt were rescued.
The men had been held by the FARC since their drug-surveillance plane went down in the jungle in February 2003. They were rescued when Colombian spies tricked their rebel captors into handing them over. Eleven members of the Colombian security forces also were released.
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