Hope For The Three Captured Contractors

Yesterday in Columbia escaped hostage, police officer Jhon Frank Pinchao was found in the jungle by a police patrol after escaping from nine years in FARC captivity. He said he was held with a group of 13 hostages including, former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three captured U.S. contractors who disappeared in 2003. He described the camps that they were held prisoners in as crueler than the concentration camps of the Nazis. Pinchao said they moved camps every few months and were often chained by their necks to stop them fleeing. President Alvaro Uribe ordered the military yesterday to hunt for the former presidential candidates as well as the three US contractors. The president has assured the White House that they are doing everything in their power to find the US citizens. The FARC, the Spanish initials for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, captured Betancourt in 2002 while she was campaigning for president. The Americans, Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell, were captured in 2003 after their surveillance plane crashed while spotting coca crops used to make cocaine. The Columbian government is not only under pressure from the US to find the American Contractors, but has been under pressure from France to negotiate a trade witht the FARC for the hostages. My thoughts are with not only our men that are being held captive, but for all of the hostages that the FARC are holding, and we hope for their safe rescue!!