{"id":1987,"date":"2008-07-02T18:37:03","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T22:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1987"},"modified":"2008-07-03T15:32:54","modified_gmt":"2008-07-03T19:32:54","slug":"colombia-gets-de-farcd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1987","title":{"rendered":"Colombia gets de-FARC’d (UPDATED)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, by now everyone’s heard of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from FARC guerillas along with the US citizens Farc has been holding for more than five years. Venezuela’s El Universal<\/a> has the background on the rescue;<\/p>\n

The Colombian Army rescued safe and sound ex presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US citizens and 11 military officers held as hostages by the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), on Wednesday announced Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.<\/p>\n

“They were rescued in an operation aimed at infiltrating the FARC first squad, the same that has held a large number of hostages for years. Through several procedures, we also could infiltrate the FARC Secretariat. Since hostages were divided into three groups, we managed to have them gathered at one single place and then moved to the south of the country, where they would supposed to report to (new FARC top leader) Alfonso Cano,” said Santos.<\/p>\n

The minister added that arrangements were made so that the hostages were picked up in pre-established place by a helicopter belonging to a ghost organization and that a FARC leader known as C\u00e9sar and another member of FARC Secretariat traveled together with the hostages to hand them over to Cano.<\/p>\n

Santos said the freed hostages are flying in choppers to San Jos\u00e9 del Guaviare, capital city of the Guaviare region.<\/p>\n

“This operation, called ‘Check,’ is unprecedented and a proof of Colombian military forces’ quality and professionalism,” pointed out Santos.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, there must’ve been a mistranslation. According to their Spanish language article<\/a> it was operation “Jack”<\/p>\n

“Esta operaci\u00f3n que se denomin\u00f3 ‘Jaque’, no tiene precedentes y pasar\u00e1 a la historia por su audacia y efectividad, dejando muy en alto la calidad y el profesionalismo de las Fuerzas Armadas colombianas”, se\u00f1al\u00f3 Santos.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McClatchy<\/a> reports that John McCain had just finished a visit to Colombia moments before the rescue;<\/p>\n

McCain, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham took turns praising Uribe, who’s raised a ruckus within Colombia’s political establishment during the past week by asking the country’s Congress to let him run for president an unprecedented third time.<\/p>\n

Leftist critics of Uribe have said he’s trying to perpetuate himself in office like a “dictator.” Human rights groups have been saying for months that the president hasn’t placed enough priority on reducing atrocities against peasants committed by the military.<\/p>\n

However, Colombians overall have given Uribe extraordinarily high ratings, with 70 percent saying they view him favorably.<\/p>\n

Under Uribe, guerrillas in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are on the brink of defeat, major cities have become mostly safe for the first time in years and the economy has grown steadily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The news just keeps getting better for Colombians.<\/p>\n

Here’s Spanish-language video of the homecoming (h\/t to my buddy Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective<\/a>) ;<\/p>\n

[youtube LpEVf2MEsj0 nolink]<\/p>\n

I’m betting there are some angry screams coming from the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.<\/p>\n

More links at Venezuela news and Views<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Left thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy<\/a> going on because McCain just happened to be in the same country. And suddenly Think Progress <\/a>believes Fox News.<\/p>\n

Next they’ll be saying McCain freed Betancourt and the Americans himself in a Chuck Norris\/John Rambo style raid.<\/p>\n

El Universal listed the former hostages names;<\/p>\n

Ingrid Betancourt, Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, lieutenant Juan Carlos Bermeo, second lieutenant Raimundo Malag\u00f3n, sergeant Jos\u00e9 Ricardo Marulanda, corporal William P\u00e9rez, sergeant Erasmo Romero, corporal Jos\u00e9 Miguel Arteaga, corporal Armando Florez, corporal Julio Buitrago (police), assistant superintendent Armando Castellanos (police), lieutenant Vainey Rodr\u00edguez and corporal John Jairo Dur\u00e1n (police).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATED: <\/strong>30 minutes ago Colombia’s El Tiempo <\/a>posted this Spanish Language video of Betancourt’s first press conference;<\/p>\n

[youtube 4AkU6mesU6A nolink]<\/p>\n

\n

“El helic\u00f3ptero casi se cae porque saltamos, gritamos, lloramos nos abrazamos, no lo podiamos creer. Dios hizo este milagro. Esto es un milagro”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My Calle J translation;<\/p>\n

\n

The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we jumped, we screamed, we cried, we hugged, we couldn’t believe it. God made this miracle. It’s a miracle.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

UPDATED AGAIN:<\/strong> More news and links at Fausta’s Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course, by now everyone’s heard of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from FARC guerillas along … Colombia gets de-FARC’d (UPDATED)<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,39,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-hugo-chavez","category-john-mccain","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}