news from columbia

[ekaphoto]

BOGOTA, Colombia - Seven tourists kidnapped two months ago by rebels in the jungles of northern Colombia looked worn and complained of being hungry in a video broadcast Wednesday.

The video shows the National Liberation Army's red-and-black flag hanging in the background, with heavily armed rebels in camouflage uniforms watching over the captives.

"We have had to walk a lot, in places we never imagined existed in Colombia," Asier Huegen Echeverria, a 29-year-old Spaniard, said in the video. "We have suffered cold and hunger, and been feeding ourselves from the land."
It was not clear when the video was made.

Eight tourists — four Israelis, two Britons, a German and a Spaniard — were seized by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, from ancient jungle ruins in northern Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountains on Sept. 12. One of them, a teenage Briton, escaped soon after the capture.

British hostage Mark Henderson, a TV producer in London, assured his family and friends that the rebels weren't harming him.

"I want to tell you that I'm OK, that I'm being treated well," said the 31-year-old, speaking in English. "You can see my beard has grown. I've gotten thinner, started smoking again, but desperate times, desperate measures."

Henderson's mother, Sharelle, said in Britain that her family was delighted to see the tape.

"It's fantastic to actually see him again," she said. "He looked fine, reasonably well."

Hundreds of Colombian soldiers have been searching for the captives in the dense jungles, which soar up from Colombia's Caribbean coast.

Vice President Francisco Santos said the Colombian government is doing everything it can to ensure the hostages "get out of this safely." He said the blame, however, lies with the rebels, and that they are responsible for the hostages' well-being.

"Without a doubt, this is the ELN's fault, not the Colombian government's," he said.

The ELN said it seized the tourists to raise awareness about the suffering of the mainly Indian inhabitants of the region at the hands of right-wing paramilitary groups and the army. They called for an international commission to visit the area.

In the video, Reinhile Weigel, the German hostage, urged the Colombian government to create the commission "to see what is happening here."

"A lot of people here are hungry, which I myself have now experienced," Weigel said, speaking in German.

Colombia suffers an average of 3,000 kidnappings every year — more than the rest of the world combined. The ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, have been battling the government for 39 years and are responsible for most of the abductions.


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John