When you read a book hot off a news event what you are getting is a magazine article forced into book length. The first sentence in the first chapter reads, “The predawn hours in Bogotá are about as peaceful as the day ever gets there.†Now wouldn’t that apply to every city in the world? So much for quality literature.
I am not one to read these quick to publish books that seem to come out for every mini celebrity and event, but it puzzles me how a claimed 700 people can be held captive in Colombia for so long by the FARC. I know Colombia is a large country with large expanses of jungle, but I can’t believe Barney Fife with a couple of hound dogs couldn’t do a better job of locating and rescuing hostages. My view has been incompetence and corruption keeps the kidnapped hostages and I was hoping to get more insight from these three Americans held captive for over five years; however the read only reinforced my view and gave me little information that I did not all ready know from reading articles about the FARC. I am going to give you my perspective of the book and if you are offended by anything that crosses political correctness from either the Left or the Right you don’t want to read this.
You have 5 guys in a plane with a down engine and over 10 minutes to prepare for a crash landing in an open field in the middle of the jungle in what they know is enemy territory. Upon crash landing all are alive, but within minutes the FARC are shooting and (50-60) are approaching them. Now what I don’t understand is how can five men with guns simple give up. They all know of the FARC ruthlessness, they know Colombian soldier are usually killed and not captured and one of the four is a Colombian solder. They should also know that since they had time to give their exact coordinates that a rescue plane would be only minutes away so they would only need to hold off the better armed FARC for a short period not beat them. But they surrender without a fight. It’s their lives and their call, but I could not see myself giving up in such a situation, particularly the Colombian soldier who should have known better. He asks the Americans tell them I am an American, but he looks Colombian and does not speak much English, as if that plan is going to work, he is immediately taken to his death along with an American after the capture.
Now the men were kept imprisoned often for months in camps that had up to 50 plus people I don’t understand how such camps can go unnoticed. A few times the guys were transported through towns in trucks. In a country where it is so easy to bribe people for information I don’t understand how the logistics and locations could not be discovered. I initially thought the captives were always on the move making it harder for them to be located, but they were mostly stationary in camps that were vacated many years ago.
I believe the Americans were holding back on a lot of the details they experienced. If you are going to write a book tell us everything. Very little is mentioned about the women prisoners and guards in terms of how they were used and how did they think and feel. A couple of times the women guards would strip to their underwear and help bathe one of the men and at least once a commander offered the men any of the female guards to sleep with, but never once was anything discussed regarding their own sexual behavior or frustrations. FARC women are treated as pack animals, servants and sex partners. The men had opportunities to talk to these women, but no details are provided on what they think of this and why they do it and the social actions that took place between the FARC. The book, not surprisingly, lacked depth.
I thought it strange that when one of the female captives made it known that she was pregnant (when it became obvious) that the three Americans wanted it to be known to the outside world that it wasn’t any of them. Now the woman was pregnant before these guys arrived to her camp why would they be concerned about such an announcement. If someone is pregnant and you are not the father you don’t start worrying that people are going to think that it is you. Two of these men were married and one was engaged. Indications were that relationships were broken during their captivity by the lack of communications these women provided to a radio station that provide free announcements for the relatives of kidnapped victims. The guys said they can see how their women would want to go on with their lives, yet at the same time they say, she did not do right by leaving. The only woman that stuck with one of the Americans was a Colombian who had twins with one of the guys who was engaged to the American woman. Even though he told her he was not going to be in a relationship with her prior to his plane crash she was the only woman that would leave regular messages with the radio station offering her love and support for him. He does return to her when he is freed, but he never explains why he didn’t want to stay with her to begin with. These radio messages from love ones were a key emotional encouragement that gave strength and hope to the prisoners. For a wife to suddenly drop off and no longer provide such support is very cold. It would be great if someone wrote a book and got the perspective of all the players and researched on the physiology at play. The theme, plot and players are all there for an excellent book, but these guys did not come close to pulling off a good book.
They met Ingrid Betancourt the presidential candidate of a very small political party who was the most famous captive the FARC had when moved to a new encampment. Even though married she was hooked up with one of the imprisoned politicians, again very little info is provided. She was disliked by two of the Americans for being arrogant, rude, accusatory and selfish. The third American spent some “intimate†but non-sexual moments with her, yet before that could develop Ingrid was moved to another camp and when they met again many months later to share a camp she was involved with another man which the third American didn’t care for. Ingrid asks the American to return the personal letters she gave him when they were “intimate†and when he refused she gets a prison guard to search all the Americans for the letters which were not found. Afterwards he thinks less of her, but he never tells us what happened to the letters.
I recall Ingrid saying in an interview shortly after being released that what happens in the jungle stays in the jungle. Well I can see why she would want that. I will say one good thing about her, which is not elaborated in the book she did make two attempts to escape, while the Americans over a five plus years made no attempts. Now the FARC holding the Americans were mostly teenagers, ignorant and unorganized as the Americans described, yet over a five year period there were no escape opportunities? Nor were there any discussions of such. How can this be? An old man was able to escape, but the only talk of escape was what to do if there was a rescue attempt, because orders were to kill all hostages if such an attempt was made and they wanted to get a running start before that happened.
At one point one of the guards indicted he would help the Americans escape, but he would have to kill all the guards to make this happen and the Americans refused his offer. Why? They all agreed these FARC guards would kill them if ordered, yet they did not want to have them killed. The Americans couldn’t convince a couple more guards to seek the reward for helping them escape. This boy who offered his help believed he was doing wrong with the FARC, but the Americans did nothing to use his assistance or give him assistance. He later committed suicide. For all intense purpose this was a prison story what prison story does not have plotting for escape, this one.
Often the guys would debate or challenge the indoctrinated guards regarding their leftist beliefs and it would always end with the guard walking away not able to answer the questions put to them. The guards were very young, ignorant and unschooled and while they often did not like their commander or task they followed instructions under the fear of being shot. They did not have the capacity to understand or want to understand.
The book had a touching ending. The guys suffered a lot. In the suburbs of the tropics there are too many insects and pests. Living in the jungle would be hell. They often got infections and were rarely in a state of comfort. The jungle looks beautiful from above, but I have been in the jungle and it can be a very dark and dreary even in the day. They often had little to eat and garbage food when they did.
This book costs 99,000 pesos in Colombia. At an airport in the U.S the cost was $56.000 pesos and I bet the difference is all tax. Certainly don’t want to encourage something as destructive as reading by not taxing books.
