CAPTURED IN COLUMBIA

AN EMAIL FROM GLEN

Date :  Sun, 9 Dec 2001

From :  "Glen Heggstad" <strikingviking1@earthlink.net>  

Subject :  SAFE AND ALMOST SOUND  

Date :  Mon, 10 Dec 2001 03:35:02 +0800  

My deepest apologies for remaining out of contact for so long, but I can assure

you, it was do to circumstances beyond my control.

I will try to bring you up to date as best I can but there is much I cannot

discuss for fear of endangering the lives of other hostages. It is too risky to

post anything on my website  until I get out of Colombia. Even then, I may not.

Several interested parties that could cause harm, have my site address and

certain agreements have been made with the Comandante of the ELN, Red Cross and

FBI that all must abide by. I cannot tell you the reasons or terms of my

release.

There is a forty three year old civil war going on here in Colombia and the

rebel groups finance there efforts by kidnapping any one over eighteen and

holding them for ransom, a process that seldom takes less than a year and often

more. All nationalities are fair game and no communication is permitted and

captives are generally held for months before notifying emabassies and grieving

families.

You have all tasted this agony. I had mine and yours to endure. Indeed there was

a moment where I begged to die just so you would know one way or another.

Unless there is a substantial sum of money involved they prefer to torture and

execute Americans, whom they blame for their misery. Some of that bitterness is

justified.

November 6, 2001

While enroute from Bogota to Medellin, Colombia on a desolate stretch of the

Autopista, I was stopped at a military style roadblock by a group of heavily

armed young men in black uniforms bearing Chinese assualt rifles. (ak-47) I was

ordered off my bike with shouts and gestures with their weapons.

For a brief moment, I considered making a run for it but several gun barrels

jabbed in my body and seeing others with radios changed my mind. There were more

ahead and behind, the moment I had been dreading had arrived.

My electronic equipment was immediately ripped off my handlbars and saddlebag

contents searched and tossed into the roadway. They were shouting, Ropa Ropa

(clothes).  I wasn't sure what they wanted. I still did not know who they were

and thought maybe I was just being robbed and they were going to send me off on

my way without my clothes because they were stuffing some clothing in a sack.

Suddenly the leader yells, Vamos and thinking he meant to get on my bike and

leave, I started to do so. This really pissed him off and it was back to the gun

barrels in the ribs. What he meant was, we are leaving together.

At this point, it's apparent this is not just a robbery as they motion for me to

accompany them behind some deserted buildings. I am convinced it is execution

time and my mind is racing for a way out. There is none. My only option is to

stone wall and try to take it in the street.

Observing the rage in thier eyes, it was my belief that they wanted me behind

the buildings for fun and games before blowing my head off. If I was afraid to

die, I would not have chosen to do what I was doing. I was well informed of the

potential hazzard in advance, but I did not want to die and be left in some

distant jungle where no one would find my decomposed body for years. I owed my

loved ones more than that, they would at least get a body back.

There was now a bus also stopped next to my bike and the terrified passengers

would be the witnesses I needed to tell what happened. I was out of options. I

had to force their hand. I would have a say so where I spent my last moments on

earth.

No quiero ir!  I don't want to go!  The shouting increases and they are furious

at my failure to comply. The force of the jabbing increases substantially but I

have made up my mind. Me no voy!  I'm not going! The situation is totally out of

control and everyone is shouting more and louder in languages neither

understands.

The leader levels his machine gun at my face from ten feet. I snarl back, Chinga

tu madre puto, lo hace aqui! Fuck your mother punk, do it here!

The leader lowers his weapon and withdraws a 9mm pistol, chambers a round and

points it between my eyes. I scream out, Andele pues puto! Get it on punk!

I close my eyes just before a deafening crack ripps through the air. I've never

been shot before and don't know what it should feel like. For a few moments, I'm

not sure if I'm dead or alive. Nothing is registering in my brain and my body is

frozen.

The bullet cleared my head intentionally and he now takes careful aim at my arm.

I realize they want me alive and that I am going with them, with or without a

gunshot wound in the arm.

I look over at the bus. The passengers are also frozen in horror. Some are

crouching, some are crying and some look the other way.

I somehow manage a stiff legged walk toward the waiting jungle and  unknown

fate. The bus is being flagged on and ordered to get moving as I glance back

over my shoulder at them, pleading with my eyes, tell some one.

As I depart from the road way, I see the other guerillas busy concealing my bike

in the empty building in an effort to hide what is occurring.

More shouting to get moving, my legs barely respond to my commands as I slowly

lower my head and silently dissappear into a solid wall of green. I have

vanished without a trace.

Thus began my five week test of endurance, battle for survival and struggle for

sanity. For more than a month, I would be marched deep into the remote jungles

of the Colombian wilderness.

Nearly all the narrow trails are straight up and straight down, even when zig

zagging we would have to side step down tiny footholds at a time. Most of the

hiking was in the drenching rain and indeed, some of it on my hands and knees

chanting into delerium, I will survive.

I had no contact with the outside world and the language of my captors was of a

dialect I barely understood. I know I can make it through anything but my

greatest burden was concern for my loved ones at home who had no clue if I was

dead or alive.

For the first few days I knew everyone would be nervously grumbling at my lack

of communication, by day five, there would be no question about it, something

was drasticly wrong. On day seven, I knew Joe would be one his way and he was.

For three weeks he and a Colombian woman meticulously retraced my steps from

Bogota to the very spot where my bike had been stashed. They missed it by hours.

They too, were now basicly behind enemy lines in rebel held territory and it was

a miracle they were not also abducted. Fearing for their safety, the FBI and

authorities at the embassy ordered them deported hours before my release. We

managed a few moments on the phone. Truthfully, neither one of us could have

handled physically seeing each other, we would have broke down.

Brad set up a command and communication center at home as Dennis rounded up

ex-army rangers and a helicoptor with 50 calibers. My friends were coming for

me, the talking was over.

After having Joe deported from Colombia, the Washington D.C. FBI jacked up Brad

with threats to cease and desist or else. The rangers in Colombia were rounded

up and hassled by Colombian Feds (DOSS).

For unrelated reasons, I was released within hours and no one had to find out

how far this was going to go. When people ask me how I feel about my close

friends, I say, I would die by their side. It is pretty obvious, that's a mutual

deal.

Durring the course of my abduction, I did encounter other hostages, all

Colombian and none of whom I was certain enough of to try and pass a message to.

I was being bombarded with psychological head games and did not know whom to

trust. A military man who was also held with me toward the end finally passed a

message disguised as a mathmatical equation after he was released. Up to that

point, I was not sure if he was a plant or not.

I did encounter campesinos on the trail and I would greet them in front of my

captors and joke around about how Americans vacation in Colombia. I hoped that

those stories would trickle back down to some one, somewhere that I was still

alive.

The details of my release cannot be revealed as others would unquestionably

suffer and maybe executed. The actual events of what they did to me in the last

five weeks, you don't need to know, it would only hurt you and make you cry.

Describing mock executions and what it felt like to mix insects with my rice to

avoid starvation are things I don't want to remember at the moment. I started

out wieghing two hundred twenty pounds, I am now down to one seventy seven and

with my beard, look about eighty years old. One thing is certain, I always come

back stronger.

At the moment, I have only the clothes I am wearing and am waiting things out in

a hotel in Bogota. My bike and all my belongings are gone. No passport or

documents. I can't go forward or backward.

For some reason, I have to remain in some ones custody until I leave Colombia.

First, the Comandante of the ELN had to sign documents releasing me to the

custody of the Red Cross, who then held me until a team of FBI agents flew into

Medellin on an embassy plane and brought me to Bogota.

We had a pretty serious misunderstanding at the airport that was probably my

fault. They had assumed I would want to return to the US immediately as I guess

most other newly released hostages from around the world wanted and had arranged

an immediate flight home for me.

I was outraged and very tired of people with guns telling me what to do. It

actually almost came to blows and I stormed out of the security area. I did not

stumble to far, there was no where to go. No documents or passport meant no

hotel,  no money, no food no taxi. They coaxed me back in and we talked it out.

They thought I was just delirious and did not understand or believe that I

actually wanted to stay and go back and get my bike. Finally after promising not

to go back after my bike and stay calm they took me to a hotel. I ended up

apologizing.

Throughout this whole ordeal, there was never a moment where I thought of coming

home before finishing what I started, even if it took years to get released. It

was a while convincing the embassy people of the same thing, but it looks like I

may get a new passport re-issued Monday if I behave myself.

Brad had already got Jimmy equiping a new bike to air freight to me before I was

released. How else was I going to meet him in Panama in four months?

I know these past five weeks have been tough on everybody, and hell, I'm only

half way to the turn around point in Tierra Del Fuego, but I did try to warn you

with my first journal entry what I was up against and the potential hazzards so

you could fasten your seatbelts.

I get a e mails from people suggesting I have a death wish but I consider this

an excercise in determination.

I love you all

GLENN

To read more about Glen's travels go to  GLEN'S HOMEPAGE

Or return to the SOUTHAMERICAN HOMEPAGE