Mr. President, I come here on a happy note. I am filing a resolution and I hope this is the kind of thing the Senate can come together to celebrate, the fact that three Americans that were held…
Mr. President, I come here on a happy note. I am filing a resolution and I hope this is the kind of thing the Senate can come together to celebrate, the fact that three Americans that were held hostage over 4 years in the jungle by the FARC contraband guerillas, a drug-running crowd, murderers who put chains around these captives' necks just like an animal, a wild animal, and they had to carry these collars, these steel collars with these steel chains, heavy, so that was another way of keeping them from escaping. But if they escaped, where were they going to go? They were out in the middle of the jungle. This resolution which I am introducing with Senator Isakson, because there is a connection of one of the hostages to Georgia, and my colleagues Senators Martinez, Dodd, Coleman, Lieberman, Cardin, Craig, Bond, Domenici, Hatch, and Chambliss, I would like to see move like greased lightning through the Senate so we can recognize this significant achievement of the Colombian military, assisted by the U.S. Government in a miraculous hostage rescue of 15 people, including Ingrid Betancort, the celebrated and quite well known former senator in Colombia who also had dual citizenship with France.
In this miraculous rescue operation there was not one bullet fired and not one drop of blood spilled.
Our three Americans, all of whom live in Florida--Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Marc Gonsalves--were held hostage for over 5 years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, after their plane had crashed on February 13, 2003.
The pilot was hurt, and he was executed. There was another Colombian with them at the time who was executed. These three--Keith, Tom, and Marc--were taken hostage and, in the words of Keith Stansell, whom I have spoken to today, they were human currency. They were the trading, the barter for the FARC to get whatever they wanted.
They kept them over 5 years. They would still have them if they did not have this miraculous rescue operation. This is one of the few times you have seen in the entire world where the world came together and focused and said: That is a job well done; for it was reported how miraculous this was,
through deception, through interception of communications, through creating a story line that this was an operation to come in and move these hostages from one part of the jungle to another.
By creating such a good ruse, they were actually--with all these 15 hostages in 3 different places, 50 miles apart from each other in the jungle--they were able to get their FARC captors to bring them together in one location, and to load on a helicopter that they thought was going to be taking them to the No. 1 commander of the FARC in another part of the jungle.
It is a miraculous story: the fact that it was pulled off by a hostage rescue team--all volunteers, playing their roles--but knowing that if it went awry, they, too, would become hostages of the FARC.
We want to send our congratulations to the Colombian Government, the Colombian military, and especially to that hostage rescue team that performed so flawlessly but that knew the risk they were taking.
This resolution I have submitted honors our three Americans and recognizes their families and their relatives who kept faith all these years--all those years, over 5--without even knowing the fate of their loved ones.
Finally, on July 2 of this year, Colombian forces carried out this dramatic rescue mission, freeing those 15 hostages, including Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Marc Gonsalves.
In this Colombian rescue operation, not a gun was fired; the playacting, the ruse, the deception was so good, not a drop of blood. It is going to go down in history as a model for these kinds of operations.
We in America are very grateful to President Uribe; to Defense Minister Santos, whom I had the pleasure, a couple days ago, of hosting; and the Colombian military for the execution of this historic operation and for bringing our men and their folks home to freedom.
I wish to recognize our commander of the U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Stavridis, and I wish to recognize our U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Bill Brownfield, for the exceptional work they have done to strengthen the United States-Colombian relations which laid the foundation and the close coordination that was demonstrated by this successful operation.
I believe this dramatic hostage rescue and the competence and professionalism that was demonstrated by the Colombian military have not only put the FARC on notice, it has put them on their heels. They are in disarray. They are demoralized. There are defections from FARC every day.
The FARC is designated by our Government as a foreign terrorist organization because it has committed atrocities against the citizens of Colombia and the United States.
The FARC still holds 700 people as hostages. When I talked to Keith Stansell today, he said what we have to do is to keep remembering them. Because of the rescue of the 15 hostages, he said they have now put heavier chains around their necks and they are making them constantly move. You can imagine: 700 people. He told me about individual hostages and how brave they have been. He said: Let's don't forget them. And let's keep talking about this until they are able to bring all those people safely home.
So I wish to echo what has already been said by the Government of Colombia, that we call on the FARC to lay down their arms. They are not going to win. They can see it now. They are demoralized. They are having defections every day.
Come to your senses, revolutionary guerrillas whom you think you are. Come to your senses and work out a plan with the Colombian Government and President Uribe to release the remaining hostages you have-- hundreds of them.
We say to Mr. Cano, the leader of the FARC, your numbers are dwindling. Today you have only about 8,000. This is less than half the force you had just a few years ago. And you are losing your rank-and- file soldiers because they see it is a lost cause. And you have suffered losses in your secretariat and in the mid-level ranks by death and desertion.
These are significant losses. The U.S. people have stood with the Colombian people as they fight this violence, this impunity, this narcotrafficking in this little country of Colombia.
It is a happy occasion for us but a sobering reflection upon those who are still held similar to animals in cages. It is a happy occasion, and we are overjoyed at the return of Keith and Tom and Marc. But Colombia's war against the narcotraffickers is not over.
