Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Update on that fukn cunt Pelosi, you won’t believe this shit.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — One of three US nationals rescued from Colombia’s FARC rebels said Monday the guerillas were not revolutionaries but “terrorists,” using a crusade for the poor as a front for crime.

“They are not a revolutionary group. They are terrorists,” Marc Gonsalves told a televised press conference from Texas, in his first public comments since the Colombian army rescued him and 14 others from captivity Wednesday.

“They say that they want equality. They say that they just want to make Colombia a better place. But that’s all a lie. It’s a cover story, and they hide behind it,” the US defense contractor said.

“And they use it to justify their criminal activity … Their interests lie in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping. They refuse to acknowledge all human rights. And they reject democracy.”

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The FARC seized Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell in February 2003 while the men were carrying out an anti-drug mission for the US Department of Defense, and held them until their dramatic rescue Wednesday.

Colombian commandos posing as rebels tricked the guerillas into handing over the trio as well as French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 11 Colombian soldiers.

In their first public appearance since they were flown back to the US military base in San Antonio, Texas, early Thursday, the Americans praised the Colombian government and their own for not giving up on their plight.

Howes thanked the Colombian army for “our spectacular rescue,” and both he and Gonsalves referred to the commandos as “heroes.”

“There was a time that when I slept, I would dream that I was free. That time was only a few days ago. It feels so good to be free here now with all of you,” Gonsalves said.

However, they reminded their audience of the remaining hostages and urged FARC to release them.

“Don’t tell us that you’re not terrorists, show us that you’re not terrorists. Let those other hostages come home,” Gonsalves said.

The hostages were likely being tortured for those that got away, he said, adding that even members of the rebel group hated being part of it so much that many chose suicide as the only way out.

The majority of FARC’s forces “are children and young adults” with little or no education who were “tricked into joining the FARC and they’re brainwashed into believing that their cause is a just cause,” he said.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) began in 1964 as a bedraggled group of 48 armed farmers led by Manuel Marulanda Velez, a peasant who believed to be the oldest Communist guerilla in the world until he died in March.

It began its campaign of kidnappings in the mid-1980s and army hostages served as bargaining chips for FARC prisoners held by the government. By the late 1990s more civilians and political leaders were being snatched.

The group is still believed to hold more than 700 hostages, actions which have heavily eroded public support for the organization, and continues to run a vast drug-trafficking network to fund its operations.

Hugo Chavez, who has been accused of backing the FARC — which he denies — has questioned its very existence, saying June 9 that today in Latin America “an armed guerrilla movement is out of step.”

The president warned that the rebel insurgency was being used by the United States to back allegations of terrorism on the continent.

“The FARC should know this: you have become an excuse, a justification for the Empire to threaten all of us,” Chavez charged, referring to the United States. “You are the perfect excuse.”

(AFP)