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Reporter's Notebook: Bill Conroy

Source: U.S., Colombian forces chose not to confront FARC rebels still on the ground after rescue helicopter departed

Posted by Bill Conroy - July 6, 2008 at 11:03 pm

The source of information for Narco News coverage of the FARC hostage rescue carried out on July 2 provided a few more details today about the operation that help to explain the images in the video released in Colombia over the weekend.

In that video, a large number of armed FARC rebels are seen in the background as the hostages line up to be handcuffed with plastic ties. The handcuffing of the hostages was reported to Narco News by the source prior to the release of the video, adding credence to the source's claims to date.

The FARC rebels totaled 62 in number, the source claims. However, only two FARC members accompanied the hostages onto the helicopter. The original game plan of the mission, the source adds, was to land two helicopters at the rescue site under the ruse of a humanitarian mission. But that plan was scuttled for fear that more FARC rebels might choose to accompany the hostages if there were two choppers — resulting in one of those helicopters being held back at a nearby location, as the source indicated previously.

A team of U.S. and Colombian forces (hidden from view) also had surrounded the clearing where the hostages and FARC rebels were gathered and were ready to move in at a moments notice, the source explains.

Once the hostages were onboard and the helicopter in the air, the two FARC rebels were overcome by the Colombia and U.S. special operations members onboard. (The team on that helicopter, as the source explained previously, included four crew members, a nurse, a medical doctor and seven soldiers — a mix of Colombians and U.S. personnel.)

The video of the rescue operation jumps from images of the hostages boarding the helicopter to a point just after they realized they had been freed. The source says that is by design, to assure the identities of the U.S. special ops personnel and Colombians inside the helicopter were not revealed.

The individual shooting the video footage was a member of the operation who was posing as a journalist, the source adds.

Once the helicopter departed the area, the source claims, the U.S. and Colombian forces surrounding the clearing were ordered not to engage the remaining FARC rebels, who still, at that point, had no clue that they had just been set up through an elaborate sleight-of-hand. The source claims that the operational imperative was to avoid a "shoot-out, because they still want to have peace talks."

Time will tell if that is really the case, or if the bigger concern was avoiding a massacre to prevent retaliation against the hundreds of hostages still being held by the FARC. Given the Colombian military's past history of unrestrained bloodshed, it seems the restraint in this case is yet another indication of a commanding U.S. presence in this operation.

SEE PRIOR STORIES ABOUT THE HOSTAGE RESCUE OPERATION AT THESE LINKS:

Source: US Military Special-Ops Team, and Not Colombian Army, Carried out Hostage Rescue in Colombia — July 3, 2008

Update: Details of hostage rescue operation clarified by source — July 4, 2008

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Bill, thanks for reporting

Submitted July 7, 2008 - 10:13 pm by Therese Killen

Bill, thanks for reporting on this story.  Woul you please comment on the Times UK story about the $20 million ransom the US paid (I think that's what the story said) to free the hostages--where does that story fit in the picture?

Scooby Do and the $20 million-ransom fake rescue

Submitted July 7, 2008 - 11:45 pm by Bill Conroy

Therese,

That question came up a few days back when the story about the $20 million ransom first appeared, via a Swiss report.

Here's what I said at the time:

 

The $20 million ransom story is just as likely misinformation/disinformation as far as narratives go. What better way to distract than to plant such a story in the Swiss press, a country known for its sympathy for the FARC, so you can denounce it as FARC propaganda, which was done by officialdom, and lump everything else in with it that goes against the company line.

Like do you think maybe this story was a plant? 

French and Swiss ebvoys in Colombia to meet with FARC

It was an AP story published July 1, one day before the hostage rescue -- which was carried out under the ruse of a French/Swiss humanitarian mission. Makes you think anyway, right?

I'm not saying it's not possible money exchanged hands in all of this, but show me the money, please.

Now, I've followed the drug war in Colombia enough to know that it is replete with corruption and payoffs. The Bogota Connection series proves that point -- a case of narco-traffickers allegedly having DEA agents on their payroll in Bogota.

So, it wouldn't suprise me to find that money changed hands somewhere along the line in this rescue operation -- maybe a narco-trafficker getting paid off to provide intel on the FARC to support the operation or an informant inside the FARC getting paid off to plant satellite phones, that kind of thing.

But as the $20 million story is presented, at least as I understand it, the premise is based on a ransom being paid to some vague parties resulting in this elaborately staged rescue operation. In other words, agents of the U.S. or Colombia worked a deal with agents of the FARC to pay a $20 million ransom and someone within the FARC (composed of thousands of people) agreed to clandestinely stage a rescue for the money, and in the process helped to bolster the image of Uribe and the Colombian government, whom they have been warring against for decades.

I just think it's a bit of a stretch. Typical ransom situations involve a payment of money upfront or at a drop location, with the hostages being delivered later, at an undisclosed location, to assure the kidnappers are not double-crossed. In this case, on video, we see 60-plus FARC rebels delivering the hostages in an open field, and two of them went onboard the helicopter with the hostages, were beaten up, arrested and now might face extradition (see this story) to the United States.

So if this was some kind of faked rescue, involving collusion between the FARC and the U.S./Colombian governments, then the FARC better catch up on some Scooby Doo episodes.

Whatever happened on July 2, I don't believe the folks that showed up that day were playing games -- in the sense that lives were really on the line on both sides, depending on how things went down. For whatever reason, that day, the gods were in a good mood, and no one died.

But that doesn't preclude that at some later date we'll discover that a bunch of cash was used to help grease the wheels of this operation in other ways or that some pecuniary-inspired treachery was involved.

Absent more compelling evidence of the ransom scenario, that's my read as of now.

 

 

Makes sense to me

Submitted July 8, 2008 - 12:47 am by Therese Killen

Bill, after I asked you that question I read through your stories and found the one you quoted from. I appreciate the fleshing out of that piece of the story in your reply to me.  Having only been here for two weeks after getting my news from the mainstream my whole life, I feel that I am learning about events south of the border for the first time.  I'm reading your Death House pieces right now and they are quite powerful.

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