Word: colombia
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...neighboring Ecuador two months ago, it may well have removed more than just a camp full of leftist Colombian guerrillas. The raid may wind up taking out a $70 million U.S. Air Force base as well. On Monday, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he's "convinced" the U.S. aided Colombia in the March 1 attack and reiterated his suspicions that U.S. intelligence agencies had infiltrated Ecuador's armed forces and police - remarks that seem to all but assure that the small South American nation will not renew the lease for the U.S. antinarcotics surveillance base at Manta on Ecuador...
...National Assembly doesn't renew that lease. "I'm convinced that the United States provided information and cutting-edge technologies without which the [March 1] attack wouldn't have been possible," Correa said on a visit to France this week. In addition to breaking off diplomatic relations with Colombia since the March raid, Correa has also alleged that U.S. spies have burrowed into his military and security forces. Last month he purged his top military brass and installed a civilian, Javier Ponce, as his new defense minister. On Monday, Ponce pledged a two-month investigation of Ecuador's intelligence community...
...they really never think this sort of thing could happen?" asks Gonsalves' mother Jo Rosano, of Bristol, Conn. "They sent civilians into a place they knew the rebels would be, and we get the impression they don't care." Rosano and others credit the new U.S. ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, with bringing urgency to the case. "We need to remind Americans," Brownfield says, "that three of their own are being held in abominable conditions that violate every conceivable standard of international human-rights...
...Americans' captivity is part of the broader haggling between the Colombian government and the FARC over how to revive peace talks in a four-decade-old civil war that has left some 40,000 dead and millions more displaced. Racked by social inequities, Colombia has endured internecine violence for much of the past 100 years. "The FARC are like fish born in a tank that remains their entire world," says Colombia's Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo, who was a hostage for six years before escaping in 2006. "They're convinced they have the right to violently terrorize others...
Since taking office in 2002, Uribe has made impressive progress with Colombia's security and economy. But there is scant contact between him and the FARC, which is far from vanquished. "I'm killing myself every day wondering why dialogue is so impossible for all sides in this tragedy," says Betancourt's mother Yolanda Pulecio. At least Betancourt is a cause celebre in France. In their jungle encampments, America's hostages in Colombia are not just out of sight; to all but their families and supporters, they seem to be out of mind too. With reporting by Sibylla Brodzinsky/Bogota...