Hostage Nation

by Victoria Bruce

  On January 28, 2008, in the same courtroom where Simón Trinidad had been convicted for conspiracy to commit hostage taking, Ken Kohl asked Judge Royce Lamberth to condemn Trinidad to the maximum sentence allowed in the extradition agreement—sixty years in prison. In Kohl’s argument, he compared Trinidad to Osama bin Laden and said that the guerrilla should be punished as a terrorist. Kohl pointed dramatically at Trinidad in front of a courtroom packed with reporters, saying, “Because that’s what he is—a terrorist.” In Tucker’s subsequent statement, he rejected the comparison to bin Laden and told the court that, contrary to what the prosecution argued, a harsh sentence would not encourage the FARC to release the three Americans. Then Tucker—freshly back from his secret meeting in the mountains—argued that the U.S. government should allow negotiations for the release of hostages and that it should amend its policy regarding negotiations. Judge Lamberth, unmoved by the public defender’s proposal for changing U.S. policy, announced to Tucker and the packed courtroom that he, as a judge, had nothing to do with the U.S. policy on negotiation.

  Then Trinidad spoke. Reading from a long speech for over an hour, he denounced terrorism in all its forms and said it was his sincerest wish that the three Americans be returned safely to their loved ones. He said that when he joined the FARC, he knew he could lose his life and liberty fighting for justice and peace in his country. He concluded what would likely be his last public speech with the declaration of a dedicated revolutionary: “Long live Manuel Marulanda. Long live the FARC. Long live Simón Bolívar, whose sword of freedom continues to run through America.” After Trinidad’s speech came the judge’s sentencing decision. Attorney Paul Wolf summarized Lamberth’s final comments:

  Judge Lamberth looked Trinidad in the eyes, said he respected Trinidad’s intelligence, sincerity, and eloquence, and then proceeded to sentence him to 60 years—the longest sentence ever imposed on a Colombian. Trinidad had gone over the line, explained the judge, when he joined this conspiracy. His crime was terrorism, a heinous and barbaric crime that violated the law of nations. No civilized nation will tolerate terrorism, he concluded, and this was a court of law. The maximum sentence allowed for hostage taking was life imprisonment, said the judge. But he would abide by the wishes of the Colombian government and only impose a term of 60 years. “Good luck to you, Mr. Palmera Piñeda.”

  Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba sat in the courtroom gallery, fuming and holding back tears. Córdoba had not stopped working to help free the remaining political hostages, including Stansell, Howes, and Gonsalves, and she knew that Trinidad’s incredibly harsh sentence could severely damage prospects for getting any more hostages out. Gary Noesner and those at Northrop Grumman were disheartened because they felt like the sentence would be a major detriment to getting the Americans released, and it seemed like they had run completely out of options. The hostages’ families feared it was a terrible maneuver by the U.S. government. But none were more distressed than the hostages themselves, who immediately learned of Trinidad’s sentence through radio broadcasts. Luis Eladio Pérez wrote that Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes were “tormented by the topic of Simón Trinidad and Sonia with their respective sentences [Simón Trinidad with sixty years and Sonia with sixteen and a half years]. But particularly that of Simón Trinidad, because they had heard some guerrillas declare openly that they would be sentenced to the same number of years as Simón Trinidad, but in the jungle.” Several weeks later, the FARC would make its position clear through an interview with Iván Márquez posted on the Web site of the Bolivarian Press Agency (ABP): “The Colombian government and the White House should think about not putting more obstacles in the way of a humanitarian exchange with sentences like this, which in the end amount to 60 years of prison in the jungle for the three Americans held by FARC.”

  While the prospect of the Americans’ freedom being gained through negotiations seemed to be completely erased by the DOJ’s sentencing of Trinidad, a month later, several other political prisoners were on the verge of being released unilaterally by the guerrillas. In February 2008, with the FARC Secretariat itching to unload the burden of the hostages and also to repair relations with Hugo Chávez, Luis Eladio Pérez was unchained from Thomas Howes and told that he would be released. Before he left the camp, Pérez’s fellow hostages wrote letters for him to carry out. None of the letters passed the guerrillas’ censorship, and they were taken away. But Pérez had read and memorized their contents, and he promised that he would visit all of the families and deliver the messages to each intended recipient. On February 27, after seven years in captivity, Pérez was marched out of the jungle, along with three other political hostages, and delivered with great fanfare to Hugo Chávez.

  For the most part, each visit Pérez would make to the families of the hostages he’d left behind would be a difficult, heart-wrenching experience. But there was one instance when Pérez was delighted to be the messenger. Hearing that Pérez had something to tell her, Keith Stansell’s girlfriend, Patricia Medina, went to the airport to meet Pérez on his arrival in Bogotá. Pérez wrote of the moment he saw Medina: “Right then, someone came up to me with a bouquet of flowers, and I grabbed a rose. ‘This is the most beautiful message that I could give to a woman: Take this rose in the name of Keith. He wants to know if you would like to marry him.’” Medina froze. The young mother had spent five years bracing herself for the possibility that Stansell would not want to be with her when he returned. “When Luis Eladio told me that Keith wanted to marry me, it caught me by surprise, because Keith never sent a message to me in the video by Jorge Enrique Botero. Keith never sent any message to me. But when Luis Eladio told me that Keith said that he wanted to marry me, I swear, that was the day I had most yearned for in my life.” Medina stood completely still, clutching the rose that Pérez had given her, tears streaming down her face. “Luis Eladio said, ‘Well, yes or no?’ And I said, ‘Yes, yes.’” Then Pérez smiled and made Medina promise that he could be the best man at the wedding. (Stansell would later say in the book Out of Captivity that he didn’t exactly offer a marriage proposal, but that Pérez had interpreted it as such.)

  Pérez also visited Ingrid Betancourt’s husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte. During their years of captivity together, Betancourt had earned Pérez’s great admiration and respect. He told Lecompte that Betancourt had been exceptionally brave in the face of terrible abuse by the guerrillas. She had saved Pérez’s life and forfeited her own freedom when the two tried to escape together and Pérez had become too ill to continue. She was defiant and strong and incredibly spiritual. Lecompte was so impressed by what Pérez told him about his wife, he was overwhelmed with emotion. “It just made me love her that much more,” he said in a June 2008 interview.

  On behalf of Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes, Pérez made his way to the United States to meet with their families. He felt the visits were very important for their emotional well-being because he could give them details about their loved ones that they’d been unable to know for over five years: Stansell was a leader among the prisoners, strong but fair; Howes was a joker, good-natured and friendly with almost all the others; Gonsalves was kindhearted and devoted to his Bible. But there were other meetings that Pérez hoped to have in Washington, D.C., ones where he might accomplish something he felt was even more important: support for a humanitarian exchange to free the hostages. And he hoped the catalyst would be the very strong messages from the American hostages to their own government. “In their letters, Marc and Keith both expressed their loyalty to the United States and said that they were disappointed in the behavior of the government, because during the five years, it had not made any statements with respect to them. Without a doubt, this abandonment affected them a lot,” Pérez wrote. “The letters weren’t only directed at President Bush, but also to the Congress, to Nancy Pelosi, and to a coalition led by Massachusetts congressmen Jim McGovern and Bill Delahunt, who the Americans knew had been working to find a political solution to the situation.” Th
e three Americans also wrote letters to The New York Times and The Washington Post asking for more coverage of their plight. Three more letters were directed to the possible future presidents of the United States: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Pérez was able to convey the contents of the letters only to McCain, who, Pérez wrote, “was very touched by their situation.”

  After Pérez’s release, Hugo Chávez and Piedad Córdoba continued to push the FARC to release more hostages, and the families of the Americans were hopeful that Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes could be the beneficiaries of those negotiations. However, the U.S. government flatly refused any type of collaboration with the Venezuelans on the case. Even Córdoba, because of her association with Chávez and proximity to FARC commanders, became persona non grata in Washington, D.C., on her visits to try to secure support for a hostage exchange. Noesner believed that the snubbing of Córdoba was another in a long list of mistakes by the U.S. government. “The problem in the government is that they always look at anybody who has access as being duped by the FARC or secretly pursuing the FARC’s agenda,” he said. “To me it reflects a naïveté about who you have to deal with in a hostage crisis. You have to deal with people who have access and influence, and those aren’t going to be people who 100 percent share your political ideology.”

  In mid-February 2008, just after the fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of the Americans and a week before Pérez’s release, Northrop Grumman had organized a meeting for the family members to give them an update on the status of the case. As they had for the meetings held each year since the kidnapping, the company once again invited spokespeople from the FBI and the State Department, Gary Noesner from Control Risks, a military spokesperson, and the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, who in 2008 was a veteran diplomat named William Brownfield. They also invited the recently released Colombian hostage Clara Rojas. From Rojas, the families learned more about how their loved ones were faring in captivity, which gave them some solace, although Rojas had not been with the men for more than two years. And because she had been released through the work of Piedad Córdoba and Hugo Chávez, they began to see a possibility that Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes could benefit from the work of Chávez, as well. Unfortunately, none of the speakers from the government or the corporation could report any new progress on the case. There was, however, one new guest who had recently been face-to-face with the FARC commanders responsible for the men’s fate. Noesner had convinced Northrop Grumman executives to invite Jorge Enrique Botero to the meeting to give the families an inside analysis of the FARC and to detail what he believed were the guerrillas’ plans for the hostages. When it was time for the families to ask questions, Keith Stansell’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Lauren, asked Botero if he thought that the FARC would authorize him to tape another interview. He said, “Lauren, my dear, it is not time to talk about interviews. It is time to talk about releases.” The family members let out a collective gasp. Botero knew that Córdoba had been pushing for the release of at least one of the Americans as a way to get the U.S. government involved. This was encouraging because Botero knew that the FARC were eager to please Chávez and would probably be very eager to do his bidding. Botero could not tell the families any more specifics. Instead, Botero spoke about Córdoba’s and Chávez’s continuing interest in working toward some sort of an agreement for the release of all the hostages. For the first time in five years, everyone left the company meeting in high spirits. Noesner and Botero ate lunch together in a Fort Lauderdale café, thrilled with the possibility of progress after so many disappointing years.

  Eleven days later, just after midnight on March 1, 2008, Colombian military bombs rained down on the camp of Raúl Reyes, instantly killing the commander and sixteen of his men. Immediately after, Colombian troops stormed the wreckage, collecting the body of Reyes and all of the evidence they could find on the FARC organization. The attack was a complete surprise, and many of the dead guerrillas were found wearing underwear or nightclothes. (Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos later admitted paying $2.7 million to an informant for information that led to the successful strike.) The attack had come after Colombian bombers entered more than a mile into Ecuador and struck Reyes’s camp while flying north. The enraged Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, announced that the action was a violation of Ecuador’s airspace and that he considered Colombian troops on the ground a military invasion. Hugo Chávez moved Venezuelan troops near the border with Colombia and recalled all personnel from the Venezuelan embassy in Colombia. A similar strike inside Venezuela, Chávez warned, would be considered a “cause for war.” Chávez was still ardently supporting the guerrillas and arguing that they should be considered a “belligerent army” rather than an “international terrorist organization”—a political distinction that the Venezuelans said had no legal effect but which showed Chavez’s support for the guerrillas. Relations were smoothed over a week later when Uribe met with Chávez and Correa in the Dominican Republic. After first offering insults, the three ended the meeting with an apology from Uribe, followed by handshakes and hugs among the frosty neighbors.

  Just two days after Reyes’s death, on March 3, Iván Ríos, the youngest member of the Secretariat and commander of the FARC’s Northwestern Bloc, was also dead. But this time, it was impossible for the guerrillas to place the blame directly on the Colombian army. Ríos had been killed by his own security chief, Pedro Pablo Montoya, aka Rojas, who put a bullet through Ríos’s forehead and murdered the commander’s girlfriend as well. Three days later, Montoya delivered his boss’s severed right hand, a laptop computer, and Ríos’s ID card to the Colombian military and asked for amnesty and a big payoff. Fingerprint results proved that the hand was indeed that of Ríos. It was unclear what motivated Montoya to kill his boss, but it was speculated that there had been so much pressure on the guerrillas to capture Ríos that Montoya decided to put a definitive end to being at the wrong end of the chase. It was also reported that Ríos had become increasingly paranoid about infiltrators and had executed more than two hundred of his own men. “I did it to save my life and that of my girlfriend and another companion,” Montoya said as he was paraded in front of reporters by Colombian authorities. Shortly after, Defense Minister Santos said that a payment of 800 million pesos ($320,000) had been made to Montoya. The payoff was highly criticized by many within the government, who argued that it amounted to rewarding someone for murder. Santos argued that the policy to pay someone to deliver a FARC commander was helping fight the guerrillas and should be upheld regardless of how the delivery transpired.

  Analysts said that Ríos’s murder was telling because it showed the rebels were beginning to turn on one another. Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy felt that Rojas’s act of treason was indicative of a much greater problem that ran through the entire organization—an inability to communicate. “Not only on a national level—every communiqué looks like it was written by Marxists in the 1960s—but also at the local level where they’re feared instead of loved [by the campesinos]. And now it’s looking like they’re even feared and not loved by a lot of their own recruits, their own rank and file. We’re hearing so many rumors now about [FARC commanders] having consejos de guerra, war tribunals, and trying to root out would-be traitors—just killing people by the dozen within their own ranks. So the Colombian government’s strategy of making clear that those who desert will not be mistreated, and may even get a reward, probably is having a huge impact.” (In February 2009, Montoya remained in jail, where he’d been since his celebrated murder of Iván Ríos and his departure from the guerrillas a year earlier. Prosecutors had frozen the reward money, and Montoya was under investigation for terrorism, theft, and murder. “With this kind of treatment for a deserter,” an annoyed Montoya told the Associated Press from jail, “what guerrilla is going to turn himself in?”)

  Nonetheless, over two thousand guerrillas entered the Colombian government’s reinsertion program in 2008. The highly publicized deal offe
red incentives such as health coverage, stipends, and job training. Deputy Defense Minister Sergio Jaramillo said that not only was the number of desertions staggering but that commanders were also leaving the ranks in numbers never before seen. “More than quantity, what is interesting is the quality of the people who are demobilizing. You see more and more people with command positions.” Jaramillo said that the FARC, although it was one of the world’s oldest guerrilla movements, was becoming inexperienced due to the loss of its more senior members.

  In April 2008, a deserter from the Caribbean Bloc told the San Francisco Chronicle that intense ground attacks and aerial bombardments forced his comrades out of their area of influence, and by late 2007, 80 percent of his regiment had deserted. “Our money, our food and our economic support all began running low,” he said. Another deserter told the Chronicle that he and his girlfriend deserted after being told that their baby daughter would have to be given away or killed because the child was a security risk. A ten-year veteran who quit the guerrillas in 2008 told Reuters, “To say the FARC are finished is a mistake. The FARC have been around for 40 years and could be for 50. But the FARC are stuck, and what future is there in growing old there?” he said. “I believed in the FARC once, but now, they are infiltrated and some bosses are corrupted by drugs.”

  While the mass desertions were commonly written off by the Secretariat as just a downward phase of a long war, the deaths of Secretariat members Ríos and Reyes were undeniably the worst hit in the army’s entire forty-five-year history. It was an especially debilitating defeat for the commander in chief, Manuel Marulanda, who was believed to be close to eighty years old. On March 26, less than a month after the deaths of two of the seven Secretariat members, Marulanda told his companion, Sandra, a much younger woman who’d been with him for the past decade, that he had a very bad stomachache. Sandra was sure it was gastritis, not only because of the symptoms but because Marulanda had been plagued with the ailment various times and hadn’t been feeling well for several days. One of his attendants gave him a generic medicine to take away the pain, and by 5:30 p.m., Marulanda said that he felt much better and asked for dinner. They gave him food, and he said, “Ah, now I feel well.” At 6:30 p.m., Marulanda was resting, when he had a sudden and massive heart attack. Sandra grabbed him and held him, but there was nothing she could do.