Colombia Reveals Video of Hostage Rescue

Colombia has released video showing portions of the hostage rescue operation that freed Ingrid Betancourt, three American contractors, and 11 Colombian soldiers.



It's curious that Colombia is being criticized by some quarters for relying on American and possibly Israeli intel to help plan and/or carry out the rescue operation.

At a news conference here with dozens of journalists, the government also defended the rescue as a Colombian effort after reports that American and Israeli advisers had taken part.

“Not a single foreigner participated,” Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said. But he acknowledged that the American military had provided a surveillance plane to monitor the operation, as well as tracking technology placed on the helicopter used to spirit the hostages away that could emit distress signals.

He also said Israel had helped Colombia reorganize its intelligence services in the past.

While Colombia receives more than $600 million a year in security and antinarcotics aid from the United States, any perception of a more in-depth American role in the rescue would be likely to inflame emotions in neighboring countries like Venezuela, where political supporters of President Hugo Chávez openly support the FARC.

Mr. Santos added that the Colombian intelligence agents sent into the jungle, who numbered more than a dozen and included at least one woman, fooled the guerrillas into believing that they were part of a polyglot humanitarian mission intended to transfer the captives elsewhere in the country at the request of a senior FARC commander.

The rescuers included an agent pretending to be Italian, another supposed to be from the Middle East and a third who performed his role as an Australian so convincingly, according to Mr. Santos, that he invoked the spirit of Crocodile Dundee.

Even the video itself was part of the ruse, shot by two agents pretending to be television journalists. The Colombians’ three-minute video captured some of the despair, trickery and euphoria involved in the operation.

It seems that the anti-Americanism runs deep among the journalists, who pestered the Colombian officials over foreign assistance despite the fact that it's clear that Hugo Chavez and Venezuela have been busy supporting FARC for years.

Venezuela has been supporting that terrorist group and Chavez has been intent upon expanding his influence in Latin America, so the fact that the Colombians have effectively carried out this operation is a big black eye for Chavez's designs. That follows nothing but a series of setbacks for Chavez relating to Colombia and FARC since the Colombians killed a major FARC leader and captured all manner of intel, including a laptop containing links between FARC, Venezuela, and even a meeting between FARC terrorists and a so-far unnamed Democratic party operative possibly linked with the Obama campaign.