Were the FARC tricked or did Ceaser et al give them up?

Gator says on Jul 3, 2008, 10:03:

About what? What's your point?

"Brevior Sltare Cum Deformibus Mulieribus Est Vita!" .

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durito says on Jul 3, 2008, 10:12:

^A helicopter on the ground for 22 minutes and this is not confirmed by leader Cano?

How would Cano confirm anything?

It`s become quite clear in recent months that the FARC is having extreme difficulty in communicating with each other:

--Reyes tracked and killed likely after talking on radio/sat phone
--FARC doesn`t even know it has not held the boy Emanuel for several years
--Karina and others surrender and says she has not had communication withthe secretariat in years

Allegedely the military had infiltrated far enough in that Ceaser believed he was recieving messages from Cano.

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bamacellist says on Jul 3, 2008, 10:44:

Why is the sky blue? There's gotta be more to it than ultraviolet light reflecting off the atmospheric canopy, doesn't there??? Somebody's responsible, I say. Fess up!!!!

Why are you so sure there were only TWO trees involved??? Who put them up to it???

Seriously, it is possible César gave them over and the security of his family is part of his payment. There are lots of other possibilities, too, and the full and unwashed truth may never come out, or we may be looking at it and just not believing, but how much does it matter?

"The future is much like the present, only longer."

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Medellin Traveler says on Jul 3, 2008, 10:55:

Interesting article with more details about the ruse. Besides the twenty minutes on the ground, the FARC walked with the hostages through the jungle for 90 miles before reaching their final destination.

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Old-fashioned fake-out results in freedom for hostages

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Government agents posing as rebels tricked a gang of armed desperados into handing over 15 hostages during a rendezvous deep in Colombia's unforgiving jungle.

Gen. Mario Montoya leads freed hostages across the tarmac Wednesday at the Bogota, Colombia, airport.

The Colombian government's bloodless rescue of the hostages Wednesday was the product of a perfectly executed ruse that depended on old-school spy games rather than high-tech gadgetry.

Agents spent months worming their way into the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an insurgent force that has waged war on the Colombian state for 40 years, Gen. Freddy Padilla de Leon told CNN.

The agents gained the rebels' trust and rose to the top of FARC's leadership council as well as a team assigned to guard the hostages.

When the time was ripe, the moles used the authority they'd gained within the group to order the 15 hostages moved from three separate locations to one central area, and the game was on. Watch how the operation went down »

"We convinced the FARC that they were talking to those of their own," said Gen. Mario Montoya of the Colombian army. "It was all human intelligence."

Once the hostages -- including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three American contractors -- were gathered, the agents ordered a 90-mile march through the steamy jungle, Montoya said.

Little did the rebels know that the military was about to pull off a bait-and-switch that would leave them standing in a jungle clearing, not realizing they'd just been hustled out of their most valuable assets. See former hostages, officials exult »

The agents told their FARC comrades that an "international mission" -- such as the Red Cross or a U.N. delegation -- was coming to visit the hostages, Montoya said.

At the appointed hour, an unmarked white helicopter set down in the jungle along the trekkers' path. Colombian security forces posing as FARC rebels jumped out, some wearing shirts emblazoned with the likeness of revolutionary icon Che Guevara. Background on FARC »

The helicopter crew told the 60 or so real rebels that the chopper was going to ferry the hostages to the meeting with the "international mission," Montoya said.

During their 22 minutes on the jungle floor, the government pilot and co-pilot spoke in code with their colleagues, authorities said, using phrases such as "Generators OK" that carried a secret meaning to the security forces.

All 15 hostages were handcuffed and placed aboard the helicopter, along with two of their guards, leaving the rest of the FARC detachment on the ground.

Once the chopper was up and safely away from the landing zone, the fake rebels persuaded the real ones aboard to hand them their weapons. Moments later, both rebels were on the floor of the aircraft, cuffed and blindfolded by their erstwhile comrades, Betancourt said. Watch Betancourt describe her 'miracle' »

A crew member turned and spoke to the hostages.

"We are the national military," he said, Betancourt recalled. "You are free."

cnn.com

"Huevos Rancheros en Medellin, No Quiero Taco Bell." - www.medellintraveler.com

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sanandressi says on Jul 3, 2008, 11:17:

I just raised the possibility because it sounds so hard to believe that this was pulled off without Ceasar himself being involved.

OK! It happened the way the military said it did. Therefore, yes, it shows how bad off the FARC really is at this point. That leader Karina said the army has been giving them no rest whatsoever.

However it went down they are free and that is all that matters. I am just interested in the details and I am not looking for a smoking gun.

BTW Who gets the rights to the book and the movie?

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bamacellist says on Jul 3, 2008, 11:23:

"Who gets the rights to the book and the movie?"

It's a news story! Public domain! Go for it! Oliver Stone is already working on it....

"The future is much like the present, only longer."

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Lcacique says on Jul 3, 2008, 11:25:

You get the rights if you write a story...And the truth certainly won't come out in a movie.

Hoy se nota en la floresta un ambiente de alegría. ¡Y el rumor de ranchería es mas dulce y sabe a fiesta!

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pilotguy says on Jul 3, 2008, 14:23:

Wow !!!! Rampant paranoia here...

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Medellin Traveler says on Jul 3, 2008, 15:46:

More detaills regarding "the rescue."

"Colombian intelligence officials were able to plan the rescue, code-named Operation Check for the end-game chess move, with information from John Frank Pinchao, a police official who escaped in April last year and helped pinpoint the FARC camps. He gave them insight on how the camps are managed, their weaknesses and their routines, according to statements by government officials including Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos."

Muchas gracias, John Frank Pinchao.
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Colombian Troops' Daring Rescue Had Even Betancourt Fooled

By Helen Murphy

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- The T-shirts emblazoned with images of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara convinced Ingrid Betancourt. She assumed the men with the iconic revolutionary on their chests were ushering her into the white helicopter for transfer to yet another rebel camp.

Instead, Betancourt, along with 14 other hostages, was taking her first steps toward freedom after six years of being held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The helicopter she climbed into was piloted by Colombian troops, and the six men wearing in the Che shirts were soldiers who tricked the rebels into believing they were following orders to move the prisoners. Colombian intelligence had infiltrated the group, known as the FARC, and started planning the rescue mission as long as a year ago.

``The helicopters arrived, and these absolutely surreal characters came out,'' Betancourt said yesterday, gripping rosary beads after she landed at Bogota's military airport. ``They were wearing Che Guevara shirts and I thought, it's the FARC.''

Betancourt, 46, a French-Colombian citizen who was seized while running for president in 2002, was freed along with three U.S. Defense Department contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers and policemen.

The day of her release, Betancourt awoke as usual at 4 a.m. to listen to a radio program that broadcasts news and messages from family members to the FARC's more than 700 captives. She and her fellow hostages were told an international aid helicopter would come and take them to the encampment of Alfonso Cano, the drug-funded group's leader.

Handcuffs, Humiliation

``They told us we would be taken to another, better prison site,'' Betancourt said. ``It broke my heart -- more captivity, another move.''

Later, they were handcuffed and manhandled onto the aircraft by the undercover government agents. ``It was very humiliating,'' she said.

After the unmarked helicopter flew over the jungle and out of range of the FARC camp, the hostages saw the men in Che T- shirts spring on their captor. Gerardo Antonio Aguilar Ramirez, known by his alias as Cesar, was tied up and blindfolded. Then the Colombian troops revealed their identity.

``We are the national army, you are free!'' the six agents on board told them. ``The helicopter almost fell out of the sky because we jumped and screamed, we hugged and cried,'' Betancourt said.

`Movie-Style'

Colombian intelligence officials were able to plan the rescue, code-named Operation Check for the end-game chess move, with information from John Frank Pinchao, a police official who escaped in April last year and helped pinpoint the FARC camps. He gave them insight on how the camps are managed, their weaknesses and their routines, according to statements by government officials including Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.

``This was a movie-style rescue that freed 15 people who had been tortured for so many years,'' Santos told reporters.

A sustained barrage of air and ground attacks on the FARC has weakened the group, and local commanders had lost much of its communication capabilities.

The military placed covert operatives inside the camp holding Betancourt about six months ago. They started to gain the trust of the commander Cesar, according to General Freddy Padilla, chief of the armed forces.

Plan B

With help from a FARC leader who hasn't been identified, the military was able to con Cesar into thinking he'd been given the mission of transporting three groups of prisoners to Cano, who replaced the FARC's founder Manuel Marulanda in May after his death of a heart attack. Those who arrived in the helicopter were disguised and given acting lessons to pretend to be aid agency personnel, said General Mario Montoya, the army's top officer.

``I never expected to get out alive,'' said Betancourt, who thanked the military for its ``impeccable'' mission. ``It's a miracle.''

The military had a Plan B. Some 30 helicopters and 58 men surrounded the camp, ready to strike or offer payments to the captors if the covert plan failed, Padilla said.

Betancourt, who was educated in Paris, was kidnapped along with her running mate, Clara Rojas, while campaigning against Uribe as a candidate for the small Green Party. They were nabbed as they entered the demilitarized zone former President Andres Pastrana set up in 1998 to carry out peace talks. The rebels used the zone to build up arms, run drugs and plan kidnappings. Rojas was freed by the FARC in January with the mediation of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Letter to Mother

Videos captured by Colombian authorities in November showed Betancourt, a former fitness buff, looking sickly thin and refusing to speak or even look up while being filmed. She appeared healthy in video broadcast yesterday.

While captive, she wrote a letter to her mother in which she described being held in ``chains like an animal.'' She said her hair was falling out in clumps, and that she and other hostages were ``living like the dead.''

``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,'' Betancourt wrote in the letter, which has since been republished in book form in France and Colombia. ``I don't have the same strength any more, it's very difficult for me to continue to hope.''

Bloomberg.com

"Huevos Rancheros en Medellin, No Quiero Taco Bell." - www.medellintraveler.com

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