Posted on 05/17/2006 4:45:56 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
BOGOTA, Colombia, May 17 (Reuters) - While foreigners kidnapped in Iraq make instant headlines around the world, three Americans captured by Colombian rebels three years ago are all but forgotten.
President Alvaro Uribe looks set to win a second term in an election next week, riding popularity won through tough security policies that have targeted Marxist guerrillas and helped tame high kidnap and crime rates.
But for the families of U.S. contractors Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell captured in 2003 on a mission to detect cocaine crops, and relatives of thousands of Colombians held hostage, falling crime statistics mean little.
The families of the three Americans have not heard from them since their capture and government efforts to free them have yielded little.
"I don't know what's happening, nobody tells me anything, if he is dead or alive; at times I think that the governments have already forgotten about them," said Mariana Howes, wife of Thomas.
According to the attorney general's office, 800 people were kidnapped in Colombia last year, a 50 percent drop from the previous year due at least in part to a change in reporting methodology. A kidnapping is now only officially registered after the attorney general opens an investigation.
There were 2,900 kidnappings in 2001, the year before Uribe became president, according to government figures compiled under the old method.
Despite the improvement, Colombia still has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world, fuelled by weak law enforcement, a vast gap between rich and poor and a four-decade-long insurgency by the 17,000-strong FARC rebels.
Uribe has promised through a U.S.-backed campaign to crush the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the huge cocaine trade that helps finance them.
The last time the U.S. hostages' families heard from the U.S. or Colombian governments was in March when investigators examined remains in a mass grave in the central province of Tolima to determine whether they belonged to the three men.
"When they found the remains of some people in Colombia the U.S. government investigated to see if was them but it wasn't," Howes said by telephone from her home in Florida.
"The government got involved in that investigation and they got in touch with me, to keep me informed, but nothing else," she said.
NO CLUES OR CONTACT
Earlier this year the FARC said the three men were alive. Uribe has tried to negotiate a hostage swap with the rebels that would include the Americans but the FARC has so far rebuffed him.
Among other hostages held in jungle camps are former presidential candidate and French-Colombian national Ingrid Betancourt, former governors and lawmakers and dozens of police and soldiers.
Uribe, whose father was killed by the FARC during a botched kidnapping in the 1980s, has accepted a proposal by France, Switzerland and Spain to help break a deadlock with the FARC over prison exchanges but there has been little progress.
The FARC, which says it is fighting to impose socialism, has 62 political hostages, including the three Americans, it says it would like to exchange for thousands of rebels imprisoned by the government.
But relatives of the kidnapped victims life is a limbo with little to no contact for their broken families.
Patricia Medina, the Colombian girlfriend of Keith Stansell and mother of his two-year-old twins, said her children are not recognized as family by the governments because Stansell was kidnapped three months before they were born.
She said she lives in hope that Uribe will work out some way for her to at least communicate with Stansell.
Howes, the mother of Thomas Howes' 18-year-old and nine-year-old children, calls her life an unbearable wait.
"I don't have many answers because I don't know much," she said. "The only thing I know is that what I go through is horrible."
Colombia ping
Believe it or not every week for the last three years at our church there is a prayer request for "the three Americans held hostages in Columbia since 2003". Now I know the rest of the story.
Prayers.
Awful...back in my day one had to pay M-19 if abducted down there.
There were some prominant Baranquilla folks nabbed by ELN back in the late 80s....they paid.
Colombians with Southern Gringo surnames.
EC, you know that story.....I think Miko Duran made the payoff in Fundacion. The guy kidnapped was a Doctor's son.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.