Hostage Nation (11 page)

“Historically, FARC would grab an oil-exploration worker, a mining guy, an agriculture worker or someone like that and hold them for money,” says Noesner. “Then they communicate with the family or the company. The company would sometimes have a relationship with a [company like] Control Risks, sometimes not. If it's an American citizen being held, even if it's a Colombian with dual citizenship, the FBI would deploy. Not to take over the negotiations but to say, ‘Here's what we recommend; here's the issues as we see them.'” The security company's negotiator and the FBI agent would then appoint a family member or someone close to the case, who, after coaching, would act as a communicator to speak directly with the kidnappers. “The U.S. ambassador to Colombia would be informed of what was going on, but they
pretty much gave the FBI free rein to assist and help the families as long as they reported back to the embassy.”

If the kidnappers had already made a monetary demand, the negotiations would be fairly straightforward. The communicator would ask for proof of life, such as a video or photo of the victim. If the kidnappers refused, the negotiators would try to establish whether the victim was alive by asking questions that only the victim could answer. Once proof of life was established, the negotiations for money would begin. At the time of the kidnapping of Howes, Stansell, and Gonsalves, a common rule of thumb for Colombian kidnappings was that payment would likely be about 10 percent of the initial demand. Just under four years earlier, in a 1999 case, a $3.5 million ransom was paid for seven Canadians and one American oil worker seized in the Ecuadorian village of Tarapoa—the original demand had been $35 million. The settlement was a tremendous boon for the kidnappers. In the aftermath, the kidnapping of foreigners turned into large-scale and well-planned operations for various guerrillas and paramilitary groups, and negotiations became increasingly difficult to manage because of the enormous stakes.

One of the most ill-fated cases that Noesner oversaw from his Quantico, Virginia, headquarters began on October 12, 2000, when nine foreign workers were captured in Ecuador near an oil-drilling area close to the Colombian border. Forty men, dressed in fatigues and armed with assault rifles, surrounded the site. The victims—four Americans, a New Zealander, an Argentinean, a Chilean, and two French citizens—were forced into a helicopter, which the kidnappers then stole from the site and flew off to a jungle prison camp. Four days later, the two French helicopter pilots escaped. The seven remaining hostages had been working for three different corporations, each of which was represented by its own security company. The security companies' representatives had varying degrees of experience in hostage negotiations and held vastly differing views on how to proceed.

From the beginning, the negotiations were tense. The first contact from the kidnappers came over VHF radio to the large group of negotiators who were based in Quito, Ecuador. The group included an FBI agent, members of the Ecuadorian Police Anti-Kidnapping and Extortion
Unit, three security officials from Chile and Argentina, and three private security consultants representing Erickson Air-Crane, a heavy-lift helicopter company; Helmerich & Payne, Inc., an oil-drilling firm; and Schlumberger, a New York oil-services firm. The kidnappers identified themselves as the “Free America Commando” and launched into a tirade against the role of the United States in Colombia's narcotics industry. The kidnappers, who were believed to be associated with FARC guerrillas, demanded eighty million dollars for the release of the seven men. It was a ridiculous and unprecedented demand. The negotiators went quiet and then broke out in nervous laughter. As the bargaining began, tensions grew. “There were arguments about who should lead the negotiations, what to offer, how quickly to offer it … all kinds of complications,” an employee of one of the security firms told a local reporter after the crisis was over.

By early November, with the kidnappers sticking to their eighty-million-dollar demand, the negotiating team began considering the risky option of a rescue attempt. A thirty-five-member team from the U.S. military (SOUTHCOM) concluded that a rescue attempt would be too risky because the hostages were being held in the deepest part of the Amazon jungle. For more than two months, the heated negotiations went back and forth. The team of quarreling negotiators hadn't received any proof of life, and the kidnappers weren't budging on their first demand. Negotiators from one of the security companies argued that the $3.5 million that had been paid in 1999 was too high, and that by taking a tough stance with a lower offer, they could curb the guerrillas' outrageous demands. After twenty different communication exchanges between the kidnappers and the security companies, the kidnappers demanded that a counteroffer be made. Without conferring with the others, a representative from one of the security companies spit out a number: $500,000. Before anyone could stop him, the flustered intermediary repeated the number into the radio. The paltry sum was ridiculous—an absolute insult to the kidnappers. The blunder resulted in the kidnappers screaming expletives and terminating the conversation. “It was an ungodly mess. And sadly, the lack of effective communication between all the parties led to the execution of hostage Ronald Sander, the American,” says Noesner. On January 31, 2001, the
body of Sander, a fifty-four-year-old Helmerich & Payne employee, turned up full of bullet holes; he'd been shot five times in the back with a semiautomatic rifle. His body was wrapped in a white sheet, on which was scrawled, “I am a gringo. For nonpayment of ransom.”

Days later, a deal was brokered. The security companies and their insurers would pay thirteen million dollars to the kidnappers. Logistics were worked out over the following weeks. The money, packed in seven boxes weighing more than nine hundred pounds, was shoved off a helicopter as it hovered over a jungle clearing that was marked by a red oilcloth. The hostages were given their freedom and arrived in Quito six days later, on March 1, 2001, after 141 days in captivity.

It was the high-dollar precedent set by this case that had Noesner expecting the FARC to demand a ransom in the tens of millions for the three Americans. The company was well aware of the possibility, too, and even before there was a demand of any kind, a Northrop Grumman representative told Howes's and Gonsalves's wives and Stansell's fiancée that the company might not be able to pay the ransom amount. Noesner assumed that in his new role as a civilian negotiator, he would work with the FBI and Colombian intelligence to negotiate a safe release. But Noesner was wrong. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration had turned the word
negotiate
into a statement of weakness, a sign of failure. And this new paradigm would completely shut down any interest on the part of the U.S. government in looking for a diplomatic solution for the hostages' freedom. Confounding the situation even more, the FARC made an unprecedented demand. The ultimatum was posted on the FARC's official Web site on February 24, 2003: “Three Gringos in the custody of our organization will be liberated, along with other Colombian prisoners of war, once a prisoner exchange materializes in a large demilitarized zone between the government of Uribe and the FARC.”

The FARC statement came as a complete shock to Noesner, to U.S. military bosses at SOUTHCOM, to politicians in Washington, and to the FBI agents, who had grown accustomed to helping negotiate for hostage releases in Colombia. It was especially shocking to the Northrop Grumman brass, who, although the company had acquired CMS four years earlier, claimed that they didn't have any idea that
Northrop Grumman had employees running such dangerous missions. (A source within the company would later defend the company's ignorance, arguing that companies like Northrop Grumman are so enormous that it is sometimes impossible to keep track of subordinate companies or to learn about every aspect of the company for sale before purchasing it.) The FARC's statement was even a shock to Colombian president Álvaro Uribe; never before had Americans in Colombia been considered spoils of the country's civil war. The “other Colombian prisoners of war” the FARC was referring to had been captured over the last half decade. They included Colombian politicians, military and National Police officers, and soldiers.

As far as FARC high commander Manuel Marulanda was concerned, Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes were invading mercenaries fighting alongside the heavy-handed, hard-line administration of Álvaro Uribe. And because Marulanda considered
spies
more valuable than regular civilians, for whom the FARC mandate was to demand cash payments, the FARC's offer was to trade the gringos for guerrillas who had been captured and were serving time in Colombian prisons. For Marulanda, the idea of liberating his soldiers was driven by a strong paternal nature to protect his own. Above everything else, it was a question of honor. It was his number one goal, the thing that he was most passionate about. In 2001, under President Andrés Pastrana, deals such as this had been negotiated between the government and the guerrillas, resulting in prisoner exchanges, and Marulanda was hoping for a similar scenario this time around. But the political climate had changed in both Colombia and Washington, and both governments were now taking a much tougher stance against the FARC, which had the official U.S. designation of “terrorist organization.” The second part of the demand, what the guerrillas referred to as “a large demilitarized zone,” meant that the guerrillas wanted the government to guarantee there would be no Colombian troops in a 44,000-square-mile area covering the departments of Caquetá and Putumayo. Uribe announced that he had no intention of releasing FARC guerrillas from prison in an exchange or ceding a demilitarized zone to the FARC. (The FARC had persuaded Uribe's predecessor, President Pastrana, to demilitarize a
16,000-square-mile area for more than three years, with disastrous results for the government.)

For all his experience, Noesner was about to face a completely different landscape, one that he would have to navigate for a longer time than any other kidnapping case in his career. The case would pit him against the State Department, the Department of Justice, and even his former friends and subordinates at the FBI. Noesner would fume that the classified National Security Presidential Directive (which he had helped author) signed by George W. Bush, which included the passage “The U.S. Government will make every effort, including contact with representatives of the captors, to obtain the release of hostages without making concessions to the hostage takers,” would be tossed aside as the government turned its back on the art of negotiation. Months after the kidnapping, the overarching dismissal of what Noesner had spent his entire career perfecting would lead him to conclude angrily, “Some in our government would just as soon see these guys dead as rescued.”

T
he roots of
Erythroxylum coca
and its white powder derivative, cocaine, are deeply imbedded in the history of the northern Andes, the mountain chain that runs the length of the South American continent. As early as 500
B.C.
, Incan tribes in the areas of present-day Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador used the plant in religious ceremonies. Shamans burned the leaves—which were thought to have magical powers—to see the future and purify places inhabited by evil spirits. In the late 1500s, Spanish physician and botanist Nicolás Monardes wrote about South American indigenous people who would chew a mixture of tobacco and coca leaves as a stimulant. When Spanish conquistadors took over land from the native tribes, they levied a 10 percent tax on coca production. The plant's medicinal benefits were widely known throughout South America, and in 1609, a Peruvian priest, Padre Blas Valera, wrote:

The town of Peñas Coloradas, on the Caguán River, under control of FARC commander Sonia until her arrest in 2004. The community was very prosperous thanks to cocaine commerce. The military took it over in 2004 and all the residents left. Photo: Carlos Villalón
.

Cocaine alkaloid was first isolated in 1855 and purified in 1860 by German chemists, becoming commonly used in the late part of the century as a pain reliever and as an anesthetic during dental and eye surgery. Because of its other neurological effects, such as increased energy, lack of hunger, euphoria, and exhilaration (a result of its effect of blocking the brain's ability to take up released dopamine), cocaine was soon popular in a variety of medical practices. Sigmund Freud was a well-known proponent of the drug as an antidepressant and for the treatment of morphine addiction.