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| Latin America |
| Tourists kidnapped in Colombia |
| 2003-09-15 |
| Police in Colombia say eight foreign tourists have been kidnapped by suspected members of the left-wing guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The group is believed to include four Israelis, two Britons, a German and a Spaniard. You’d have thought the Israelis would have been smarter. The tourists were kidnapped as they hiked in the area, near the Caribbean coast, where a so-called Lost City (Ciudad Perdida) sits in the jungle built by an indigenous civilisation 500 years before Christ. The Israeli ambassador said that the four Israelis had travelled to the area because they had a keen interest in pre-Colombian Indian ruins. "Ari, where shall we vacation this year?" "Oh, I don’t know, Algeria?" "Algeria is so last year, Ari. I know, let’s go hiking through the Colombian ruins!" The area of Sierra Nevada where the tourists were snatched is a disputed territory, fought over by Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drugs traffickers, none of whom welcome foreign visitors, says the BBC’s Jeremy McDermott in Bogota. Perfect place for a vacation. Most of Colombia’s 3,000-odd kidnappings every year - that is one every four hours - are carried out by FARC, who use the ransom to fund their 39-year war on the state. They often make their hostages walk for days between malarial jungle prisons. Guerrillas have been known to murder their hostages rather than allow them to be rescued and have held kidnap victims for up to five years whilst waiting for a ransom, our correspondent says. As Latin America’s biggest guerrilla group with 17,000 fighters, FARC is currently holding dozens of political prisoners, including a former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, and three US military contractors it wants to exchange with rebels held in Colombian jails. The ultimate "tourist trap". |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Wonder if the Israelis were really tourists. There is quite a bit of islamic terrorist organizing in that area. Sounds like an unliely place to be seeking that lost tribes. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-15 8:26:20 PM |
| #1 You would think the Columbians would know better than to kidnap Israelis. I'd cut those four loose quuick. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-9-15 11:30:48 AM |