Un poco de informacion al respecto del asesinato de tres norte-americanos cuyos cuerpos fueron encontrados en la frontera con Venezuela Martha =================== http://cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9903/06/colombia.bodies.01/ FBI joins probe of killings of Americans at Colombia- Venezuela border Police wheel one of three bodies of Americans shot to death in Colombia March 6, 1999 Web posted at: 5:21 a.m. EST (1021 GMT) BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- FBI agents are due to attend autopsies on Saturday for three Americans found beaten, tortured and shot to death on the Colombia-Venezuela border. The bound and blindfolded victims were believed to have been kidnapped last week by Colombian rebels. Their bodies were discovered late Thursday. The U.S. State Department blamed Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), for the killings. The bodies will be examined at a morgue in the regional capital of San Cristobal, near the Colombian border. "We condemn the FARC in the strongest possible terms for this barbaric terrorist act," State Department spokesman Lee McClenny said. "We also demand that the FARC accept responsibility for this cold-blooded murder and turn over those of its members who perpetrated this crime to be held accountable by the courts." McClenny called on the Colombian government to arrest the killers and extradite them to the United States. The State Department confirmed the identities of the three victims on Friday. The dead were: Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, an American Indian from Wisconsin, Terence Freitas, a 24-year-old environmentalist from Los Angeles, and 39-year-old Lahe'ena'e Gay of Hawaii. The three were kidnapped on February 25 in Arauca state in northeastern Colombia while on a mission to help organize schools for the indigenous U'wa people. They had traveled under the auspices of the Hawaii-based Pacific Cultural Conservancy International, which Gay directed, and were studying the U'wa to determine whether they might be able to assist them. No one claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but an U'wa representative who was with the Americans when they were seized, Roberto Afanador, said he suspected FARC. Afanador said FARC frequently enters the U'wa reserve without permission. FARC, which is blamed for about 60 percent of Colombia's 2,000 annual abductions, rarely admits its kidnappings. Last year, the group kidnapped four Americans but released them unharmed without demanding ransom after a month of captivity. "This case was a bit unusual. Nobody expected this outcome," Quil Lawrence, a journalist in the region, told CNN. Freitas' mother, Julie Freitas of Los Angeles, said she was "totally devastated" by her son's murder. "I'm proud of my son," she said. "He lived the life that he wanted to live. He had such a passion for the indigenous culture ... and he risked his life preserving that culture." The U'wa, a nation of 8,000 people, won a legal battle against Occidental Petroleum in 1997 that prevented the oil company from exploratory drilling on traditional U'wa territory. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
