[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 25 (Thursday, February 14, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S1047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FARC HOSTAGE TAKING

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it has been 5 years since four 
Americans disappeared in the jungles of Colombia while helping that 
country's Government fight its war against narcoterrorism. Five years 
ago yesterday, a single-engine plane carrying these Americans lost 
engine power and crashed into the jungle. One of those Americans and a 
Colombian colleague were brutally executed by the terrorist group the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC. The 
remaining three--Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Goncalves--were 
taken hostage by the FARC and have since languished in the Colombian 
jungle prison, where they are held despite repeated appeals for their 
freedom.
  Fortunately, we think, through recent news crews, that those 
Americans are still alive. They are being held somewhere in an 
undisclosed location in the jungle along with untold numbers of other 
hostages. These men were involved in our decades-long struggle against 
drugs that are polluting our children's minds and the lawlessness in 
Colombia. Their sacrifice and those of their families--and most of 
those families live in Florida--is all too real. We can't forget them. 
That is why I am making these remarks after this 5-long-years' 
anniversary that occurred yesterday.
  Last year, I introduced a resolution condemning the FARC for its use 
of hostage taking and drug cultivation to visit terror upon peaceful 
people. Our colleagues passed that resolution, which also called for 
the immediate release of all those FARC hostages, including the 
Americans I have mentioned.
  I am here today, after 5 long years of these Americans' captivity, to 
again remind our colleagues of the plight of these men and their 
families and to ask for their support in doing everything possible, as 
we continue to try to secure their freedom.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Florida 
raising the issue of people whom we hope to get out alive and also 
appreciate the poetry of my colleague from West Virginia. I, too, am 
amazed and quite a bit envious that he has so many poems memorized and 
he can deliver them so well. It is a lost art, more of his generation 
than mine, but maybe it will come back in the next.

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