hostages

LinkTV's bilingual program "Latin Pulse" produced a 24-minute program on the Colombian hostage rescue, which aired on July 29. I was part of a panel with three others on the program, which starts about half-way in.

You can also watch it and read and a transcript at LinkTV's web site.

It was like a Hollywood picture. Intelligence agents infiltrated the Colombian FARC guerrillas and led them to believe that their commander wanted to move 15 high-profile hostages held by the group, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors. Army commandos posing as representatives of an international nongovernmental group then landed a Russian-made helicopter and picked up the hostages. Then they were free, without a shot being fired.

We celebrate the freedom of these 15 people. They suffered greatly during up to 10 years in captivity, bound in chains in the jungle. The world could identify with their suffering, which was extensively reported.

But absent from the rescue story are many communities threatened by violence from growing right-wing paramilitaries, army killings and guerrillas, and the nearly 4 million others who are internal refugees from the war. Will the international community show interest in their suffering, and in resolving the conflict, now that Betancourt is free?

Tomorrow morning (Friday, July 11, 2008) John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation will appear on the  Pacifica Radio program "Wake Up Call." Lindsay-Poland is co-director of FOR's national Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean, which has been engaged in human rights accompaniment work in Colombia for the past six years. In conversation with the program's Friday morning host, Mario Murillo, Lindsay-Poland will discuss this past week's dramatic release of several high-profile hostages from the FARC guerillas, and what it might mean for those who to build a lasting and just peace in the country.