Pubdate: Sat, 15 Feb 2003
Source: World, The (OR)
Copyright: 2003 Southwestern Oregon Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.theworldlink.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1229
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/plan+colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/colombia.htm

AMERICAN, COLUMBIAN FOUND IN PLANE WRECKAGE WERE MURDERED

FLORENCIA, Colombia (AP) - An American and a Colombian whose bodies were
found in the wreckage of a U.S. antidrug plane were shot to death at close
range "in an act of extreme cruelty," Colombia's top general said Friday.

The U.S. State Department said three other people in the aircraft, all
Americans, may have been taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC.

"We have reliable reports that crew members are being held by the terrorist
group the FARC," State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said Friday in
Washington. "If these reports are accurate, we demand the crew members be
released unharmed immediately."

The bodies of an American and a Colombian were found in the wreckage of the
plane. Gen. Jorge Mora, chief of the Colombian armed forces told reporters
both were "executed, in an act of extreme cruelty." Both died from the
gunshot wounds, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the attorney general's
office in Florencia.

The identities of those aboard haven't been released.

The single-engine Cessna plane went down Thursday in rebel territory in
southern Colombia where the United States has backed a massive campaign in
the region to locate and destroy the drug crops with aerial fumigation.
Plantations of coca - the main ingredient of cocaine - are prevalent in this
region of humid plains and jungle-covered mountains.

According to one report based on a radio interception, rebels quickly
arrived on the scene of the plane crash and captured the survivors.

The State Department said the plane was a U.S. counter-drug aircraft.

President Alvaro Uribe lamented the deaths of "two people aboard the plane -
a sergeant in our army and an American citizen - whose murders have been
confirmed in the south of the country."

"There is a massive effort under way in a very unfriendly part of the
country," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota said embassy personnel had been to the crash
site.

The Americans were contractors for the U.S. military's Southern Command,
which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S.
government officials said in Washington. The U.S. Embassy said the plane
crashed eight minutes before its scheduled arrival in Florencia, a
provincial capital.

Colombian troops and U.S. officials continued their desperate search Friday
for the survivors. DynCorp, a U.S. State Department contractor involved in
anti-drug missions in Colombia, said on Thursday that they were helping in
the rescue effort.

Four Colombian soldiers involved in the rescue effort were reported injured
by rebel land mines.

"The rebels have a large part of the area mined to stop troops from coming
in," said Capt. Lida Zambrano, spokeswoman for the Colombian army's 12th
Brigade.

The FARC was also blamed for an explosion Friday in Neiva that blew up a
house and killed 15 people, including eight policemen who were investigating
a reported rebel plot to assassinate Uribe.

Army troops patrolled the main road in the region, hoping to intercept the
rebels if they tried to move the men out of the area by road. The army also
closed the road between the towns of El Doncello and Puerto Rico - near
where the plane was believed to have crashed - for several hours late
Thursday, local residents said.

Washington is now moving beyond simply fighting drug trafficking - which
provides profits for rebels and right-wing militias - to helping the
Colombian government battle the insurgents by providing training,
intelligence and other support.

U.S. special forces in eastern and central Colombia are training Colombian
army troops in counterinsurgency tactics and Washington is planning to share
intelligence on the rebels with Colombia. Dozens of companies have contracts
with the U.S. government to maintain radar stations that track drug flights,
fly crop-dusting planes that destroy drug crops and provide other services
to Colombian security forces.

Some of the contractors work at the Larandia military base, near Florencia.

The FARC and the National Liberation Army have fought the government for
nearly 40 years. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, die each year in the
fighting.
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