Hi Chatters and Tweeters,

Attached is the first report that I found today, before the one on the release
of Tom on CNN-Reuters news story on the kidnapping. Information about going
to CNN yourself is at the end of this post.

What follows next is confirmation that we birders have to make sure that we
hold all thoughts, opinions, non-public news-stories, and comments to
ourselves until all of our fellow birders are released in Colombia.

This is the first paragraph of an e-mail I received today:

<< Dear Mr. LeVine,
I recently found your email address reading through your birdchat site. I am a
Washington correspondent for a newspaper and a TV newscast in Colombia ( I am
myself Colombian also).>>

The remainder of the e-mail asked for information about how we choose places
to go birding and for personal information and pictures of and about the
kidnapped birders. My response and the response all of us must have to such
an inquiry is as follows:

<< ---
I received your e-mail today. I thank you for your concern, but
unfortunately, I am unable to help you. First, I am a tax accountant and
currently under a great deal of pressure to complete my clients' tax returns
within the next two weeks, by April 15th. Also, I only know the four
birders/birdwatchers involved by their birding (birdwatching) reputation in
our birding community. Finally, I am going to take my own advice and leave
everything to the families and the experts.

To this end, I have forwarded your e-mail sent to me to one of the families of
the birders involved. It will be up to them to respond to you. I hope you
will appreciated the concern that all birders-birdwatchers have for the quick
release of our fellow birders and the personal concern that we personally do
nothing to impede their speedy release.

Sincerely,

John C. LeVine>>

If you should receive a like inquiry, please forward it to a family member, or
to me for forwarding. Please do not try to answer any of the questions
contained in it, no matter how innocuous, benign or indirect they may seem.
All of us on Birdchat, etc do not know what is really happening and our
answers may hurt our fellow birders. So please, do not try to answer the
sender yourself. Just decline as I did. Thank you. And no, I do not speak
with anymore authority or knowledge about what is happening than those of you
who are reading this. And maybe even less than some of you. But I DO know
that we must limited our post to only legitimately published news-stories.

No Progress on U.S. Hostages in Colombia

Reuters
02-APR-98

BOGOTA, April 2 (Reuters) - Aid agencies said on Thursday they would not
venture into a Colombian mountain region to mediate the release of four
Americans and an Italian being held hostage by guerrillas until they were sure
the area was safe.

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels have threatened to kill
the Americans if they prove to be undercover intelligence agents.

The U.S. State Department has said none of the Americans are spies, saying
they were on a bird-watching trip when they were seized 11 days ago. Earlier
this week, a regional FARC commander warned army bombing raids were
endangering the captives' lives but military chiefs said all aerial missions
had been halted, adding that they would not mount a ``blood and fire''
operation to free them.

``We have not had any fresh contact with the FARC unit (holding the
hostages),'' a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) said. ``Some military operations continue in the zone and for security
reasons the ICRC has not gone in.''

The Americans, named by immigration officials as Thomas Fiori, Peter Shen,
Louise Agustine and Todd Mark, were snatched at a rebel roadblock on the main
highway between the capital Bogota and the eastern plains.

The Americans were kidnapped along with Italian Vito Candela and a group of
Colombians and are currently being held in an isolated region of deep gorges
and knife-edge precipices about 35 miles (55 km) east of Bogota.

Representatives of the Colombian Human Rights Ombudsman's office are also
trying to negotiate the release of the hostages but their efforts to contact
the FARC's so-called 53rd Front have so far failed.

``The situation is quite conflictive right now,'' a spokeswoman said. ``We
fear for the lives of the hostages because of the threats made by the
guerrillas and so far it has been impossible to mediate.''

Earlier this week, the FARC's international spokesman Marco Leon Calarca said
the Americans would not be harmed if they proved to have no links with U.S.
intelligence organizations.

In a communique issued late Wednesday, the Organization of American States
(OAS) called on the FARC to ``respect the lives, safety and health of their
captives and to free them immediately.''

A Wisconsin-based independent pressure group Colombia Support Network, which
monitors human rights, echoed that call and stressed ``these naturalists are
not wealthy people and their visit to Colombia was for purely scientific
reasons.''

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.All rights reserved.


If you want to sign up for your own CNN news service and not have to wait for
me to forward these posts you can go to CNN at http://www.cnn.com It is
simple, free and is done by paging all the way down their home page. On the
right side, almost the last thing on the page is a hot-key that is head
with"Custom News" Register for your personal news. Click on it and answer
the questions and you will receive a daily news service with only stories you
are interested in. Well, almost only. In the personal section of your
personal news put "Birdwatching or Birding" This is were I am find the news
story waiting for me each day about the kidnapping. Other interesting news
stories have appeared under "birds" in the past, which is also one of my
options.

Great birding and find that next lifer,

John (One of Birders2)

John + Irma = 2, we are birders, too.

John C. LeVine
Birders2 at aol.com
Los Angeles, CA

Please put <To Birders2> in subject line when e-mailing us personally. I do
not open all of the 200-300 e-mails I receive each day, but I want to be sure
to read your e-mails to us. Thanks!


April 2, 1998
8:22 pm PDT