Btw, I just caught two presentations on the Betancourt et all rescue

in Colombia.

They were interesting to me because of what they revealed about the Colombian government and about our own government's approach to / use of FARC and what that meant for the hostages.

They were both in the context of book releases. Here's Betancourt's:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Hasa

The one with Victoria and Karin Hayes (Hostage Nation) isn't up yet, but here's the Amazon link which has the info needed to search CSPAN video archives.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Colombia+Hostage+Nation&x=13&y=19

I want to watch each again to process more but a few tidbits caught my attention. Betancourt says, she thought Uribe thought, let Chavez burn himself with this effort. Karin Hayes brought up the fact that the same contractor hired to defoliate Colombia also offered to do Afghanistan but the Afghani government wouldn't go for it. She talked briefly about the similarities between Colombia and Afghanistan. Victoria Bruce remarked on the fact that the FBI negotiator who had brought out 30 people safely from Waco was working on this set of hostages and that he became totally frustrated because the governments had no interest in negotiation. The FBI was told to go away in this case. The relatives were admonished not to speak to the press WHILE both governments did nothing to secure the release of the hostages.

Worth the time. The Bruce/Hayes segment should go up soon. Peter Bergen was acting as mod at the New American Foundation. I don't trust him at all. He's much to invested in the Official Narrative about al Qaida and I wouldn't be in the least surprised to find out some day that he has been co-opted for access. But in any case, the Bruce/Hayes presentation is interesting for the facts they let slip.

There should be transcripts for both segments.

fwiw

1. After Uribe asked Chavez to negotiate with the FARC guerrillas for hostage releases, and Chavez was on the point of getting the first two released, Uribe abruptly called off his request to Chavez, and that same weekend Donald Rumsfeld published an op-ed in the Washington Post stating, in the first paragraph, that Chavez's help on hostage releases was "not welcome in Colombia." I figured that either puppetmaster (Rumsfeld) had pulled puppet's (Uribe's) strings OR the whole thing had been a treacherous set-up to begin with, to increase Chavez's contacts with the FARC (to later call him a "terrorist-lover") and possibly--since the Colombian military fired rockets at those first two hostages, when they were on route to their freedom--to hand Chavez a diplomatic disaster, with dead hostages.

The excuse that Uribe gave for withdrawing the request at the last minute was that Chavez had violated some protocol by calling someone in the Colombian military. Possibly that is how Chavez avoided dead hostages (killed by the Colombian military). (The rockets missed.) Chavez got them out later--and four others--presumably by a different route. I think that this Chavez phone call to the Colombian military is probably more important than I had previously realized. If THAT is the REAL reason that Uribe tried to stop the hostage release process (under orders from Washington)--that Chavez called the Colombian military--then it's pretty clear that it WAS a set-up from the start. Chavez had FOILED their plot and they didn't want it to go forward with Chavez getting the credit for hostage releases including (it was pending) release of famous hostage Ingrid Betancourt.

Betancourt's statement--as summarized by you--that "she thought Uribe thought, let Chavez burn himself with this effort"--therefore greatly resonates with me. That WAS the plot--to burn Chavez.

Rumsfeld's hit piece was entitled, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants like Chavez." (12/1/07)

Chavez continued the hostage release effort, even though Uribe had rescinded his request, under the urging of president of France (Betancourt is a dual French/Colombian citizen), her family, other hostages' families, other world leaders and numerous human rights groups. They begged him to continue, so he did, getting a total of six hostages released, then he apparently had to quit because of the hostility of the Colombian government and military. (It was too dangerous for the hostages.) The Colombian government had also done the unthinkable, and had arrested FARC envoys to Chavez who were carrying "proof of life" documents. "Proof of life" is step one in hostage negotiations. That is another sign of egregious treachery.


2. Fast forward to March 2008. Raul Reyes, the FARC's chief hostage and peace negotiator, then set up a temporary hostage release camp just inside Ecuador's border and was about to release Ingrid Betancourt, by all reports. Her family was notified, and French, Swiss and Spanish envoys were in Ecuador, en route to the camp to receive her, when they were warned that everybody in the camp was going to be killed. That night the U.S./Colombia dropped 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on Reyes' camp, killing Reyes and 24 other sleeping people and raided over the border to shoot any survivors in the back. (--all based on reports of the Ecuadoran military.) This action nearly caused a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. Correa and Chavez woke up to this news the next morning and couldn't know what might come next. They both rushed troops to their borders. A meeting of the Rio Group (all Latin American dispute resolution group) with numerous Latin American presidents in attendance calmed things down. (This was the occasion on which Lula da Silva called Chavez "the great peacemaker.")

This incident CLEARLY INDICATED that the U.S./Bushwhacks and their tool, Uribe, wanted to END all talk of peace in Colombia's 70 year civil war. Killing Reyes successfully ended the efforts of many countries, Latin American and world leaders, human rights groups and others to bring the conflict in Colombia to an end.

This further summary (of yours) resonates: "... the FBI negotiator who had brought out 30 people safely from Waco was working on this set of hostages and that he became totally frustrated because the governments (my note: the U.S. and Colombia) had no interest in negotiation. The FBI was told to go away in this case. The relatives were admonished not to speak to the press WHILE both governments did nothing to secure the release of the hostages."

Why? Because, a) the Bushwhacks wanted the civil war to continue (--so lucrative to war profiteers and big drug traffickers; and such an excellent laboratory for training assassins "for Iraq and Afghanistan"*), and b) they had some high tech spying and surveillance toys to try out...


3. Reports of the Colombian military's later, very stagey rescue of Ingrid Betancourt included a tidbit (that I picked up on) that they all watched the rescue, live, from the U.S. embassy "war room" in Bogota. They were getting a live feed. Did they also do this as they blew those 25 sleeping people to smithereens in Ecuador--watch it live? And how might these high tech spying/surveillance capabilities be connected to Uribe's overall illegal spying in Colombia, an investigation of which the CIA seems to have foreclosed by arranging overnight asylum for the chief spying witness against Uribe, in Panama, last week*?


4. One other aspect to the Ecuador bombing/raid is the "miracle laptop" (later, laptopS). Uribe claimed that they had retrieved Reyes' laptop computer from the bombed out camp site, and he began making wild, crazy charges against Chavez and Correa (that they were helping the FARC get a "dirty bomb," that they were giving money to the FARC or taking money from the FARC, etc.) based on alleged emails in this laptop. The Colombian military had so compromised the provenance of the laptop, however, that even Interpol (whose director clearly wanted to help Uribe) concluded that no evidence in the laptop could be used in a court of law. Interpol deliberately did NOT hire Spanish translators to analyse the content--so we are dependent on the Colombian government for content. Also, it was later determined that there were NO emails in the laptop. (Was concocting this "evidence" against Chavez and Correa a project of Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans"-in-exile? Rumsfeld resigned from the Pentagon in late 2006, but in December 2007 had taken a great interest in Chavez and his hostage negotiations (the WaPo op-ed). Did Rumsfeld design that particular treachery?)

----------------------


*(The U.S. State Department (Clinton) recently "fined" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." I don't believe the word "unauthorized." I think Bush Jr. authorized these "trainings" and the "fine" is a cover up. I think that Clinton and CIA Director Leon Panetta (a Daddy Bush pal) are covering up Junior's crime spree in Colombia--the reason for bizarre extraditions to the U.S. and bizarre asylums in foreign countries for various witnesses against Uribe, over the great objections of Colombian prosecutors. Why would the U.S. be so interested in frustrating the justice system in Colombia--and why has it further given this death squad-connected, drug trafficking-connected, illegal spying-connected mafioso, Alvaro Uribe, prestigious appointments at Harvard and Georgetown and on an international legal commission? )

Her interview is up already. The other one should be up shortly. :hi:

And I'd like to watch the other interview but it's not up at the link you gave and I don't see how to access it.

One impressive thing Betancourt said, at the end, is that she thinks Colombians are "sick." There has been so much violence in Colombia that Colombians have hardened their hearts to the suffering of others. The context was the government, media--I'm not sure whom--have vilified her for asking for victims' compensation--something that is her right under the law and that other hostages have applied for--and have apparently turned many people against her. She said that, in Colombia's context of great violence, the victims are treated like the aggressors, and everyone steels their hearts against victims, for instance, the 4 million peasant farmers who have been displaced from their lands (by state terror--which she didn't say). No one wants to see them. No one wants to do anything about it. She feels a similar kind of rejection.

Another thing she did was to thank Hugo Chavez and Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba for getting a total of 8 other hostages released. (I thought it was 6.) That was a very simple and gracious statement. But then she said something I didn't understand. She said that the FARC planned never to release her--that they were going to keep her hostage as an attention-getter in the media. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary--that Raul Reyes was arranging her release, when the U.S./Colombia bombed his camp. I wish I'd been in Austin to ask her this question. Why does she think they bombed that camp, if not to stop her release by the FARC? Why did her family and the Swiss, French and Spanish envoys think she was going to be released by Reyes? Does she think that Reyes was lying? And what does she think of that incident, which almost started a war? (And where was she, during the incident? Was she being moved toward that camp on Ecuador's border? Or not? Did she hear anything about it? Etc.)

I don't think Reyes was lying. I think he wanted to end Colombia's civil war and he thought the hostage releases would bring this about. Even Fidel Castro had told the FARC to lay down their arms. The chance for peace was there. And I think THAT's why the Bushwhacks and Uribe killed Reyes and the 24 other people with him--to end all talk of a peaceful settlement. Betancourt was held hostage through much of the Bush Junta and perhaps doesn't quite realize how evil they were/are, and how evil Uribe was/is. She probably can't help but be grateful to them for rescuing her and NEEDS to believe that the FARC would never have let her go. She also says that the FARC are not leftist idealists but are strictly a drug business--and that is something else I just don't believe. Nobody endures a jungle lifestyle for years and years and years--their whole lives--just to enrich themselves. The commanders would long ago have absconded with the drug money and would be living the good life somewhere else anonymously. Her judgement of the FARC does not gel with her judgement of others--for instance, other hostages--that human nature is a mixed bag. Her statement is too black and white. It may be true that they maintain their armed opposition to the fascists running Colombia with drug trafficking, but how come they are living permanently in a situation where a chicken for dinner is the biggest of luxuries? It doesn't add up, and I think her judgement is clouded, on this issue, by having been their hostage for so long.

and the search would be "Hostage Nation" at the CSPAN video archive.

There were things I didn't agree with that Betancourt said, as well. But as you point out, she can't very well step out of the trauma she endured -- even as smart and as bravely as she tried to counter it while it was happening to her.

and you disagree with her????? she was held for over 6 years. what would you think???

and you fault her for not having faith in her captors!!!!

the FARC: "not because they defend the poor, because they use the poor."

see about 43:20

"we were like a trophy"

"and we were a couple of those big fish, we were not going to be out ever"

"the rescue operation, the Colombian military operation was not only a miracle, but it was the only way out for us"