Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

The Transition85promise of taking a hard line in dealing with them helped carry him tovictory in August of 2002. He took office at a precarious time in Colombia’shistory, with groups like the FARC seemingly in control of a countrywhose forty years of civil war was not going to end anytime soon.Our work was a testament to the fact that the U.S. was heavily investedin ensuring that Colombia achieve some form of political stability.Much of the U.S. funding for Colombia came through something calledPlan Colombia, which involved billions of dollars in military, social,and antidrug aid. Without it, the drug traffickers and other criminalswould continue to make the country and the region unsafe.A conservative, Uribe’s policies put him at odds with many of theother leaders in the region, especially Hugo Chávez in Venezuela andRicardo Lagos in Chile, who were far left of center. As Chávez rose toprominence in South America, he used Colombia’s ties to the U.S. as away to gain influence among the fledgling governments in the region.Chávez seized on every opportunity to characterize Uribe as a puppet,who was willing to trade billions of dollars in U.S. aid in exchangefor his country’s freedom to control its own destiny. In the rhetoric ofChávez, any ally of the U.S. was a potential enemy of South America,regardless of the increased stability U.S. influence might bring to theregion and Colombia.With many South American countries emerging into the light ofdemocratic reforms, battles were being waged to decide who was goingto ally with whom. The result of all this was that the FARC’s gain alsoseemed to help Chávez’s cause. The longer Colombia’s struggle withthe FARC went on, the more the country had to rely on U.S. aid, whichhurt its standing in South America and gave Chávez more regionalleverage.And now we were thrown into this mix of political kidnapping, murder,foreign tension, and domestic strife. With no peace settlement ornegotiations in sight, we didn’t know if they considered us a bargainingchip or just some guys to kill to make a statement about their intent