USA/COLOMBIA: Three Americans taken hostage by the FARC in Colombia tell their story in a new book

Record ID: 519144

  • Title: USA/COLOMBIA: Three Americans taken hostage by the FARC in Colombia tell their story in a new book
  • Date: 4th March 2009
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MARCH 2, 2009) (REUTERS) FORMER FARC HOSTAGES STANSELL, GONSALVES AND HOWES SITTING (SOUNDBITE) (English) KEITH STANSELL, FORMER FARC HOSTAGE, SAYING: "I think about captivity, I do one thing. I open up my collar here and I look at these scars from chains around my neck. Five years and three months of very nasty inhuman ordeal; diseases,
  • Embargoed: 19th March 2009 12:00
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  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAE4EB5RGRAID038YJZHVKPWHLI
  • Story Text: Three Americans taken hostage by the FARC in Colombia tell their story of survival and their relationship with Ingrid Betancourt in a new book called "Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle".
    Three Americans who were held hostage for five and a half years in Colombia by leftist rebels are telling their story of survival in a new book called "Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle".
    The recently-released book was written by former FARC hostages Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Tom Howes. The men were taken hostage by the rebels after their plane crash-landed in the mountain jungle on February 13, 2003.
    Now, six years later, the Gonsalves, Stansell and Howes are detailing the savage treatment they endured at the hands of FARC rebels, their will to survive, and the strong friendship that grew out of being held in captivity.
    During an interview exclusive interview Reuters Television, Keith Stansell said he still bears the scars of his capture.

    "I think about captivity, I do one thing. I open up my collar here and I look at these scars from chains around my neck. Five years and three months of very nasty inhuman ordeal; diseases, torture, marches. A real bad, bad deal that happened to three guys who were just out working," Stansell said.
    Marc Gonsalves said surviving the plane crash would prove to be the least of their problems.

    "When our airplane crashed, it was like we came out and we were on another planet. I used to think about the movie 'The Planet of the Apes', it was just like that to me because everything was different from the world that I knew. The food was different, the language was different, the culture was different," Gonsalves said.

    "Out of Captivity" details the physical abuse the men suffered at the hands of their captors, including being chained to each other, forced starvation, long painful marches through the jungle, and being treated for diseases such as malaria and worms by teenaged rebels with no medical experience, no sterile medical equipment and no pain killers.
    The book also details the men's mundane daily routines and how they mentally endured captivity.

    "We developed various mechanisms to cope with the situation. The biggest was creating a little bubble that we would put ourselves in and it's accepting the situation and living in it day by day, just one day at a time and creating a routine for yourself. I used to get up every morning and do whatever exercises I could, push ups or whatever. Then the next part of the day was to eat breakfast, if we were not on a march, then to play chess, then to listen to the radio if we had radios. But it was a type of routine that would keep you mentally occupied, and that was a humongous help," said Gonsalves.
    During captivity, Gonsalves spent about a year whittling a chess set, which the men later used for endless games of chess.
    The soft-spoken Tom Howes added, "Anything that you could image to just get us out of the prisoner mindset. If we got deep into something like a chess game, we weren't prisoners anymore, if we got on a conversation about a motorcycle ride across the country, we weren't prisoners. We were free and in that motorcycle ride, and that put us back in the bubble."
    The men say they hope their book will educate people about Colombia and the brutality of the FARC rebels.

    "The point of this book is to educate Americans about the situation in Colombia, and we're trying to paint a picture of Colombia as being what it is, a great place with great people, that have an issue, a problem with these terrorists," said Gonsalves.
    Stansell added, "There's still 22 guys there. They average eleven years in captivity. Right this minute, they're in chains and they want to be free. So what we'd like to expose is the reality of the FARC. They're terrorists, they're assassins, they're kidnappers, any negative acronym you can put on them, that's them."
    In July of 2008, Gonsalves, Stansell and Howes, along with French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and eleven Colombians were freed during a daring military rescue operation.
    In the book "Out of Captivity", the men portray Betancourt as controlling, arrogant and selfish.
    Stansell, who has been the most out-spoken about Betancourt said he was hurt and humiliated by her actions.

    "I was hurt by that person. I was humiliated. It's the only person that helped the FARC against me directly when I was being searched one day.
    She was looking for something that would cause her damage on the outside, publicly. She didn't want it to get out, so she went to the FARC, Mark and I knew it was coming, we had planed to be prepared for this search and she helped the FARC and she supervised them searching us," Stansell said.
    Reuters has tried to contact Betancourt for reaction to the book, but she has not responded.
    The three men say they would like to eventually see their captors brought to justice in an American court.
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