http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1057963.htmlI thought this was pretty cool to see. They just flew right in and and picked them up.
BOGOTA, Colombia The rescuers came wearing Che Guevara T-shirts and logos declaring them delegates of some obscure humanitarian organization.
They didn't look much like an international relief brigade. And they weren't.
They were Colombian commandos, pulling off Operation Checkmate, an elaborate ruse that would finally liberate the world's most famous hostage and three American defense contractors from the hands of leftist rebels in the jungle.
Without firing a single shot.
"Who are these people? What kind of international commission is this?" former hostage and once-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt remembered thinking. "Are we clowns in another circus? I didn't want any part of it."
In a military intelligence operation described as unprecedented, the Colombian armed forces Wednesday infiltrated the top command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Latin America's oldest insurgency and tricked rebels into handing over Betancourt and the three Americans, as well as 11 Colombian police officers and soldiers.
The rebels had held Betancourt for more than six years and the U.S. Defense Department contractors for more than five years. The rebels' most prized possessions were held in chains in jungle camps in the hopes the government would swap them for guerrilla prisoners.
The Americans Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell were being flown immediately to the United States. They arrived late Wednesday at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and then took two helicopters to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where they will undergo tests and treatment, as well as reunite with their families.
"God, this is a miracle. Such a perfect operation is unprecedented," Betancourt said, lavishing praise on the military, the defense minister and President Alvaro Uribe.
"I never expected to get out of there alive," she added.
Uribe called on the rebels to release the hundreds of other people they are holding and make peace. Colombian troops could have opened fire on the guerrillas after the hostages were rescued, Uribe said, but his government wants peace and isn't interested in "spilling blood."
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the ruse was straight out of an action film and added that the mission garnered even more spoils: Betancourt's guerrilla warden, who goes by the alias "Cesar," was captured and placed under arrest.
"This was an unprecedented operation," Santos said at a press conference in Bogotá. "What our armed forces did was something out of a movie."
He said the military infiltrated the FARC's top hierarchy and arranged for a transfer of hostages on the ruse that they were going to be handed over to Alfonso Cano, the rebels' top leader.
The government mole arranged for the hostages to be brought together from three locations to one camp, and then taken in a helicopter the FARC believed belonged to a friendly aid group that would transport the hostages to Cano.
"It shows they infiltrated the highest levels, because there is no way the guerrillas would have turned over the crown jewel to a stranger in an unknown helicopter. It's truly impressive," said Newlink Political senior analyst Mauricio De Vengochea, who has close contacts in the Colombian military.
Although officials said everyone directly involved in the rescue was Colombian, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said there was "close cooperation" from the Americans that included "exchange of intelligence" as well as "exchange of equipment, training advice and experiences of other operations."
The helicopter was piloted by intelligence officers dressed as leftist sympathizers. Betancourt said the hostages thought they were being picked up by some kind of international humanitarian organization to be taken to the FARC high command.
"Our hearts broke. More captivity. Another transfer," Betancourt said in a dramatic press conference minutes after embracing her mother.
She and the others were handcuffed as they boarded the helicopter, which she described as "humiliating." Once they were airborne, everything happened so fast Betancourt missed it.
It was then that she saw Cesar, who had treated her so cruelly for so many years, was naked and blindfolded on the floor.
"The chief of the operation said, 'We're the national army. You're free,' " she said. "The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn't believe it."
Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002 on the campaign trail, instantly becoming a cause célèbre in Colombia and France, where she also has citizenship.
A year after Betancourt's kidnapping, the Americans also were taken by FARC guerrillas. The Americans were working for a subsidiary of U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman, taking drug crop surveillance photos when their plane crashed into Colombia's jungle, which at the time was overrun by leftist rebels.
Howes is a native of Chatham, Mass.; Gonsalves' father lives in Hebron, Conn.; and Stansell's family lives in Miami.
George Gonsalves was mowing the yard of his Hebron home when an excited neighbor relayed the news he had seen on TV: "I didn't know how to stop my lawnmower. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it."
"We're still teary-eyed and not quite have our wits about us," said Stansell's stepmother, Lynne, in Miami.
And Howes' niece in Massachusetts, Amanda Howes, said the rescue "redefines the word miracle."
