Perils face US rescue in Colombia

Monsignor Jorge Jiménez was terrified when armed guerrillas forced him out of his car and began a long march that wouldn't end for five days.

Prior to three weeks ago, when three Americans were abducted after their plane went down in the Colombian jungle, Father Jiménez, president of the Latin American Episcopal Bishops Conference, and Father Desiderio Orjuelo were the last high-profile kidnapping victims of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

They were abducted on Nov. 11, 2002, while driving to San Antonio de Aguilera, about an hour outside of the capital, to perform confirmations. Jiménez said the guerrillas made them hike through the jungle night after night, sometimes as many as six or seven hours. They slept on the floor in cambuches, or make-shift huts.

But Jiménez and Fr. Orjuelo's story had a happy outcome. Five days after their kidnapping, they were rescued in a military dragnet involving 800 members of the police, Army, rapid-deployment forces, counter-guerrilla battalions, and intelligence agents. They found the priests just 15 miles from the original abduction site, protected by only seven guerrillas.

"It was an instant," says Jiménez of the rescue, explaining he was too dazed to realize what was happening, "then we were in the hands of the Army."

Since Feb. 13, nearly four times as many troops involved in Jiménez's liberation have been engaged in a massive search-and-rescue effort for the three US Defense Department contractors downed near the town of Florencia in Caquetá, about 220 miles south of Bogotá. FARC says they are now holding the Americans. The US has sent 49 Special Forces to provide intelligence and technical assistance in the 3,000-troop manhunt.

But all signs point to a significantly more difficult rescue effort than the one involving Jiménez. First, the Cessna single-engine 208 crashed in dense jungle territory that is home to the FARC; it is just outside the former demilitarized zone that was the site of failed peace talks between the leftist guerrilla group and former President Andres Pastrana. Full of endless mountain redoubts, the terrain is ideal for an extended game of hide-and-seek.

"I don't think a rescue effort is possible in the short term," Leon Valencia, a former commander of the leftist National Liberation Army who is now a political analyst, says bluntly.

One reason may be lack of cooperation by local villagers. According to Gen. Reinaldo Castellanos of the 5th Brigade, which led the rescue efforts in Jiménez's case, the collaboration of a sympathetic population just outside of Bogotá was crucial in the Jiménez operation. The farmers in Caquetá aren't likely to be as supportive of three "gringo" intelligence operatives.

"It is fundamental to highlight the support we had from the people," Castellanos told Semana magazine at the time. "They all rejected the kidnapping and pulled together their efforts in order to achieve their liberation, principally through information."

The information led to the capture of key suspects, including the chief of communications for the 22nd front of the FARC. This allowed the Army to tap into its internal communications and ultimately locate the suspects.

Simultaneously, the media reported plans to rescue the priests over the radio, prompting the guerrillas to move their charges 10 hours in a torrential rainstorm. What they didn't know was that the Army was following them.

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