US Hostages In Columbia video clip - The Columbian government released “proof of life” video footage of three US hostages held by the FARC rebel forces in Columbia.
The three Americans were civilian contractors for the CIA whose plane was shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over rebel territory.
US Hostages Proof Of Life Video
Nov. 30 - The Colombian government broadcasts videos of kidnapped politician Ingrid Betancourt and the three American hostages.
It’s the first proof since 2003 that the high-profile hostages held by Colombian rebels were still alive at the end of October, 2007.
Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, Luis Carlos Restrepo, says five tapes were confiscated after the arrest in Bogota of three suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC.
Other videos showed images of 12 Colombian hostages. Most are members of the security forces.
The FARC rebels want to exchange the US hostages and the nine others also being held for 500 members of FARC who are currently in Columbian prisons.
Ingrid Betancourt was a leading candidate for President of Columbia when she was kidnapped while on the campaign trail back in 2003.
And that’s the latest news and the proof of life video that the FARC is holding US hostages in Columbia.
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December 1st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
PARIS (Reuters) - After nearly six years of captivity in the depths of the jungle, Ingrid Betancourt and her fellow rebel hostages “live like the dead,” the Colombian-French politician said in a letter released on Saturday by supporters.
In a letter to her mother laced with love, sadness and pain, Betancourt describes her harsh living conditions in rebel camps in Colombia, the daily struggle to keep hope and the joy offered by family messages and gifts received via intermediaries.
The document was part of a haul of letters and grainy video seized from captured leftist guerrillas that showed for the first time since 2003 that Betancourt, three U.S. contract workers and a dozen kidnapped Colombians were still alive.
Betancourt, a former presidential candidate kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2002, tells how she sleeps under a mosquito net in a hammock, washes in rivers and says she has tried to escape.
“All these years have been terrible, but I don’t think I would still be alive without the commitment they have brought to all of us here, who live like the dead,” she wrote.
In the pictures released by the Colombian authorities, Betancourt appeared thin, her features etched with fatigue.
“In all these years, I thought that as long as I was alive, as long as I continued to breathe, I must continue to hope.
“I don’t have the same strength any more, it’s very difficult for me to continue to hope, but I would like them to feel that what they have done for us has made the difference,” she said of supporters. “We felt like human beings.”
LIVING LIKE ANIMALS
The group holding Betancourt, known as FARC, have kept the captives constantly on the move to avoid detection by government forces. The FARC, Latin America’s longest-running insurgency, wants to swap the captives for jailed comrades.
“At any moment they can order us to pack everything, and everyone has to sleep in any hollow, or stretch out anywhere like any animal,” she wrote.
Betancourt, who said her hair was “falling out in clumps,” said she was struggling physically and had lost her appetite, feeding instead on daily “miracles” like hearing relatives on her ageing, battered radio.
The Bible was her only luxury, the guerrillas often confiscated prized personal possessions and had refused repeated requests for reading material like an encyclopedia: “I want nothing, for in this jungle ‘no’ is the answer to everything.”
Being the only female hostage was a concern, she said: “The presence of a woman among so many male hostages who have been in this situation for eight to 10 years is a problem.”
The letter was part of evidence released a week after Bogota suspended efforts by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to broker a deal with FARC to free its hostages.
Negotiations over a hostage deal have been stymied by rebel demands for a demilitarized zone, which the government refuses.
In a phone call with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Saturday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the FARC to free the hostages and pledged to “redouble efforts” to end their ordeal, according to a statement from Sarkozy’s office.
A FARC commander told Venezuela’s state news agency ABN Sarkozy could play a “key role” in any future hostage deal.
In her letter, Betancourt urged daughter Melanie — “a sort of better version of what I would have liked to have been” — to study for a doctorate and said she was proud of her family.
“If I were to die today I would leave this life satisfied, thanking God for my children,” she wrote.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
fuck the CIA! go farc!!!!!! hail socialism!!!!!!!
December 31st, 2007 at 7:55 pm
where the fuck are the navy seals? is that only on movies? this world is soooo fucked up… people get kidnapped in a small ass jungle.. and the gov only negotiates? How about sending couple thousand special forces and raid the motha fuckin jungle??? how about taking 1percent of the effort in Iraq and raiding this motha fukin jungle.. a fukin jungle!!! these fukin rebels need to get hung… and their dicks cut offf.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Our freakin’ president that the whole USA voted for over 7 years ago, he is a WASTE OF office and his time leaving can’t come soon enough. He’d rather spend 3 billion dollars a day to fight a war that doesn’t exist and didn’t need to happen than to feed the poor on his doorstep and educate the children in the US then to spend a little time and some hard core US military and go in and get our people. OUR people the ones that working for our GOVERNMENT our tax money. Instead he collects about $400,000 a year for an income FOR WHAT? As far as I am concerned his job is not even half done, he went a man that is either dead or sick because they brought terror to the US (great work) however 7 years later we are still there, then we went to IRAQ to get rid of WMD’s get real if they had them they would of used them. And if you think for one second that is what hte war was about, than you are dumber than most. I don’t support the war, I don’t support the men a nd women over there, I just want them home AND SAFE and back with their children and family Their dying is senseless and we the US government killed all those americans for no reason, it was Vietnam all over and not even glorified.
Mr. freakin President, bring our men, fathers’, son’s, brother’s uncle’s husbands and mothers, sisters, aunts etc HOME at least do one thing right in 8 years! AND FOR CHRISTSAKE let’s say that Columbia committed an act of terriosism on US persons not land and go get our people bring them home OH that’s right there is no oil in Columbia, just crack and I guess that keeps the agencies open and people and emplolyed and keeps us with money!
Great job don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. SAve the sob stories of the great jobs you have done I can’t tell.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Related FARC Hostage Story
http://hitsusa.com/blog/344/tanja-nijmeijer/
Tanja Nijmeijer - Here are pictures and video of 29-year-old Dutch national Tanja Nijmeijer who voluntarily joined the FARC marxist rebel group in Columbia …
June 28th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
@Chris:
This is coming from a person who can’t even spell.
Oh, and you say “I don’t support the men a nd women over there, I just want them home AND SAFE”. Why is their safety one of your concerns if you don’t support them? Or is it REALLY one of your concerns? Perhaps you are just saying that to look better. Did you vote in such a way that they don’t get the proper armor or equipment designed to SAVE their lives? If you did, then you really DON’T support them.
And yes, I do know that this post is dead, I just like finding posts like this for fun
June 28th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
@miguel valois & john:
By the way, intelligent people know that swearing is just a result of low intelligence. Dumb people can’t think of anything worth saying so they just attempt to make themselves sound “experienced” to add “credibility” to the statement.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I agree…why do some people feel the need to use swearing?
By the way, it was the Navy Seals that rescued them.