Former US hostage foresees FARC's demise

Jul 7, 2008, 22:42 GMT

Washington - One of the US hostages rescued last week after five years as a captive of Colombia's FARC guerillas predicted Monday that the militant group was nearing its end.

Marc Gonsalves, who was freed in a daring operation by the Colombian military, warned FARC that its failure to accept Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's peace proposals will result in its demise.

'This downward spiral that the FARC are on now will continue, and the Colombian military is going to dismantle the entire organization,' Gonsalves said.

He and two US co-workers were among 15 hostages rescued Wednesday, along with former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 11 members of the Colombian military.

The rescue was the latest blow - and embarrassment - to FARC, which has waged a civil war since the 1960s. In recent years, the communist group has seen its military power decline and numbers dwindle.

Gonsalves, 35, and the two US contractors, Thomas Howes, 54, and Keith Stansell, 43, were making their first public comments about the ordeal. They were in San Antonio, Texas, undergoing medical evaluations and were accompanied Monday by elated family members, some of whom wept for joy.

The three men praised Uribe and the Colombian military while vowing to never forget the hundreds of hostages still held by FARC.

'We are doing well, but we cannot forget those we left behind in captivity,' Thomas Howes said.

Gonsalves, Howes and Stansell were working for a US military contracting firm and were flying over Colombia in 2003 on an intelligence mission to spot coca fields, when their plane went down and the trio were captured by FARC.

Gonsalves said that he experienced hate, abuse and torture at the hands of his captors, and he accused FARC of using its ideology as a 'cover story' for trafficking drugs and abducting or killing innocent people.

'They are not a revolutionary group,' Gonsalves said. 'They are terrorists - terrorists with a capital 'T'.'

Colombian troops posing as fellow rebels tricked the FARC unit holding the captives into transferring them into their custody, allowing the soldiers to helicopter the captives to freedom.

The hostages themselves had no idea of the ruse until they were in the air and the soldiers, some dressed in Che Guevara t-shirts, revealed their true identities, the Colombian Defence Ministry said.

In March, FARC founder and longtime leader Manuel Marulanda died of natural causes, and the second ranking commander, Raul Reyes, was killed in a Colombian raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador.

Hundreds of FARC rebels have deserted in recent months.

Betancourt and the three US military contractors were FARC's most prized hostages and important bargaining chips in any negotiations with the Colombian government.