Ex-hostage of Colombian rebels sceptical peace talks will bear fruit
As Colombian rebels negotiate in Cuba, former kidnap victim says talk of social justice is a lie
For more than five years, Marc Gonsalves and two other Americans were marched through Colombia's jungles as hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, guerillas.
Now, as Farc and government negotiators meet in Cuba to hammer out a peace deal, Gonsalves, 40, said he was hoping for the best, but fears the intentions of his former captors. "I am quickly losing hope something positive will come out of it," Gonsalves said from his home in Stratford, Connecticut.
Negotiators from both sides met last week in Havana to plot a path that might allow Colombia's largest guerilla group to put down its arms after 48 years. There are five points on the peace agenda, including land reform and the political future of Farc. Talks continue this week.
But the political pretensions of the guerillas - deemed terrorists by the US and Colombian governments - grate on Gonsalves. "They haven't done anything good for the country; all they have done is terrorise the country."
Founded in 1964 with Marxist underpinnings, Farc has found support in rural areas where poverty runs high and the state's presence is tenuous. But the group has increasingly turned to drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping to fund itself.
Gonsalves fell into Farc's hands on February 13, 2003, when he and four crewmates were on a military surveillance mission with California Microwave Systems, a division of defence technology company Northrop Grumman.