Video shows duped rebels, elated hostages
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - July 5, 2008
The would-be envoys had honed their accents in acting lessons:
Italian, Arab, Caribbean Spanish, and Australian English -
"identical to Crocodile Dundee," Colombian Defense Minister Juan
Manuel Santos said Friday as he explained how Columbia's military
duped the rebels into turning over 15 hostages.
Santos said military intelligence agents had infiltrated the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, so that guerrillas
believed the hostages were being moved on the orders of top rebel
leader Alfonso Cano for negotiations on a hostage exchange. To play
their roles, some soldiers wore Che Guevara T-shirts.
Video filmed during the rescue shows the hostages filing
grim-faced toward the helicopter in a grassy clearing fringed with
a coca field, then embracing and weeping with joy after they are
aloft and realize they are free.
Presenting the video at a news conference, Santos said that
Wednesday's elaborate ruse intentionally mimicked two hostage
handovers brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez earlier this
year, when Venezuelan helicopters carrying International Red Cross
observers picked up six hostages.
"In the last two handovers of hostages," Santos said, "there
was always a cameraman sent by Chavez."
The three-minute video presented at Colombia's military
headquarters showed the mission was modeled after the Venezuelan
operations down to the red T-shirt worn by a supposed journalist,
who poses questions to a rebel while hostages' hands are bound with
plastic handcuffs.
The guerrillas' most famous hostage, former presidential
candidate Ingrid Betancourt, stands with an angry expression.
American Keith Stansell nears the camera.
"I love my family," Stansell, one of three Americans freed in
the operation, tells the cameraman. "Pray a lot."
The local rebel commander, alias Cesar, cheerfully refuses an
interview.
The video shows a line of rebels standing in the distance
watching as the helicopter starts up. Cesar and another rebel came
aboard the helicopter and, once airborne, were overpowered by the
soldiers - a moment that was not filmed.
The final images on the video capture the hostages' elation as
they realize their captors are actually soldiers rescuing them.
Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician kidnapped in 2002,
cries with joy and astonishment, and hugs William Perez, a fellow
hostage whom she later credited with nursing her through jungle
illnesses.
"We waited 10 years for you!" exclaims Perez, an army corporal
who was captured by the FARC in March 1998.
A lawyer for Cesar, whose real name is Gerardo Aguilar, told The
Associated Press that his client was completely hoodwinked by the
operation.
Rodolfo Rios said his client, who is now jailed in Bogota,
"only realized the deception when he was in the aircraft. ... He
also told me he was hit and that, after they immobilized him, they
applied various injections."
Paraded past reporters on Friday, Cesar wouldn't say who had hit
him. He had a black eye and bruises on his face.
Armed forces chief Gen. Freddy Padilla told the AP that Cesar
had been out of radio contact with his commanders, fearing
intercepts by U.S. and Colombian eavesdroppers, and had been
relying chiefly on human couriers to deliver messages - such as the
order to move the hostages.
A beacon and microphones were aboard the Russian-made Mi-17
helicopter, allowing those overseeing the rescue to monitor its
progress, a U.S. official told the AP, speaking on condition of
anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.
Santos said a U.S. surveillance plane was overhead monitoring
the mission.
He denied reports in international media that Israel was
involved in the operation, saying it was "100 percent Colombian."
"Not a single foreigner participated," he said.
He also denied a Swiss radio report that Colombia had paid
millions of dollars in ransom to rebels in exchange for the
hostages.
The government does offer rewards for information leading to the
arrest of FARC leaders, but in this case, Santos said: "Not a cent
has been paid."
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AP writers Frank Bajak and Libardo Cardona in Bogota contributed
to this report.