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One year later, a Hawaii woman's
loved ones still seek her killers.
They want answers to her ...
Lahe'ena'e Gay spent her life helping
others until it was taken from her
on a field in South AmericaU.S. gives Colombian rebels ultimatum
By Gary T. Kubota
Amnesty International slams Clinton plan
Star-Bulletin
"Indigenous peoples know that as they disappear from the planet, the integrity of the world and the human species, as a whole, weakens. They fight for the preservation of their ecosystems ... not for themselves alone, but for the health and well-being of all the world's people." -- Lahe'ena'e Gay, in a speech before the
United Nation's 5th Commission
on Sustainable Development,
April 10, 1997WAILUKU -- Hawaii resident Lahe'ena'e Gay and two other Americans were on their way to an airport in rural northwestern Colombia when their truck was stopped by armed rebels, who hustled them away in a car for questioning.
The date was Feb. 25, 1999. A week later, on March 4, a farmer living near Colombia's border with Venezuela heard gunshots in a field. He went to investigate -- and found the three Americans bound, gagged and shot to death.
A year has passed since their bodies were found, but the killers still have not been captured, despite an admission by the rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. The State Department two weeks ago said it is continuing to seek those responsible for the deaths, and added that the FBI is working with the Colombian government in the investigation.
But human-rights organizations say the killings are part of a record of violations by both the Colombian rebels and government, who are engaged in a bloody civil war. And the victims' friends and family members are left searching for a reason anyone would kill Gay and her companions, who were in the South American country to help an indigenous tribe.
"It was a humanitarian mission," said John Livingstone, a Big Island resident and Gay's common-law husband. "The three were unarmed and there to help people. We'd like to see the killers brought to justice. They're thugs."
'A great spunky girl'
For those who knew her, it was no surprise Gay, 41, would be active here and elsewhere in issues involving indigenous peoples. She was the great-granddaughter of Francis Gay, a co-founder of Kauai's Gay & Robinson sugar plantation who married a woman descended from Maui's King Kahekili; and the granddaughter of Ernest Gay Sr., a touring opera singer who lived in Hana for many years and was a close friend of Hotel Hana-Maui founder Paul Fagin."Her grandfather called her a volcano because you never knew when she would erupt," said Jeannie Pechin, a Hana resident. "She always had a cause, even when she was a little girl."
Maui developer Michael Spalding remembers her as a woman committed to the Hawaiian culture, with confidence in herself and her dreams.
"She didn't have any limit," he said. "She had a very big envelope in her ability to do stuff.
"She was a great spunky girl. She was very beautiful -- when you'd see her, she'd take your breath away. She had charisma. Life wasn't cherries for her. It was passionate."
On the Big Island, Gay started the Pacific Cultural Conservancy International as a way to help "preserve the old ways" worldwide, according to Livingstone. Her father Ernest, a former freelance photojournalist with Time-Life, said she had the qualities to be a bridge between indigenous peoples, corporate executives and members of foundation boards.
"She was able to deal with many people in so many different worlds," he said.
Gay went to Colombia at the request of the U'wa, a tribe of 8,000 people in the Arauco region who were fighting the presence of rebel groups, the government and oil interests on their land. Her purpose was to help establish a school system sensitive to the native culture and free of government and missionary influences.
"The U'wa -- being very independent and culturally strong -- were interested in learning to read and write, but they didn't want their children to become mission students, and Lahe had had some success in other countries," said Melina Selverston, former director of the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and the Environment.
With Gay were Ingrid Washinawatock, 41, a member of Wisconsin's Menominee tribe and an activist for women's and native rights, and Terence Freitas, 24, who worked as the North American liaison for the U'wa.
Freitas, an environmental biologist, had been working on behalf of the tribe to stop plans by Occidental Petroleum to drill on lands claimed to be ancestral, but granted to the corporation by the Colombian government. He had received death threats, including a phone message warning him to "back off or die."
'Nonpolitical' purpose
Selverston described their mission as "completely nonpolitical" -- but the political turmoil apparently caught up with them, primarily in the form of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), or FARC.According to the State Department, FARC controls 40 percent of the rural Colombian countryside and gets money through kidnappings and ransoms, and from protection fees paid by drug traffickers who organize poppy fields.
FARC acknowledged last May that unnamed members were involved in the killings, but said they would be "punished" by the group itself by having to learn to read and write, and by working on road construction projects. The motive for killing the three Americans remains unclear.
"I think no one believed they would kill them," Selverston said. "There's no closure. There's no explanation or reason.
"The State Department was very unhelpful during the week of the kidnapping. They were saying that we had just to trust the Colombian government on this."
FARC's eastern commander, German "Grannobles" Briceno Suarez, was indicted in the killings, but the group has refused to turn him over. Also indicted and wanted is an U'wa tribe member.
The Colombian prosecutor general has repeatedly complained FARC elements are impeding the investigation by intimidating witnesses. The State Department said U'wa leader Roberto Jose Cobaria Afanador fled the country after getting death threats from FARC in a campaign to intimidate tribal members who might have cooperated in the investigation.
The manner in which the case has been handled has left many dissatisfied, even bitter. Livingstone, Gay's husband, said he feels FARC should be dealt with as terrorists.
"Colombian President (Andres) Pastrana said he wasn't going to extradite these folks," he said. "The president is trying to play politics. Why should the American government support these people when they make concessions to terrorists?"
Said Gay's mother, Maggie Stechman of Florida: "I am afraid justice is something within Third World countries, especially in Colombia, that will never be achieved because the U.S.A. has so many interests in these countries that they smooth over these atrocities and tell us whatever they think will keep us quiet."
To her father, Gay's death leaves much promise undone. He said she was a gifted photographer, whose 1992 Bishop Museum exhibit on pohaku stones was "extraordinary." She had worked for years to establish her foundation, wanted to spend more time at home on the Big Island, and hoped to write film scripts and a book about her lineage.
A friend on Kauai, Aletha Goodwin Kaohi, said Gay may have upset people here with her passionate approach to life, but her heart was always in the right place.
"It's like activists," Kaohi said. "They make a dent and they make progress as they go along."
But any more progress Gay may have achieved was cut short in a faraway field -- and those who knew her can only wonder why, and hope someday justice and answers will be forthcoming.
Amnesty International
By Gary T. Kubota
slams Clinton aid plan
Star-BulletinAmnesty International is criticizing the Clinton administration's plan to give $1.6 billion in foreign aid to Colombia, in the wake of continuing human-rights violations, including the death of Lahe'ena'e Gay.
Carlos Salinas, the group's advocacy director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said much of the aid will be going to the Colombian military, which -- along with rebel groups -- is guilty of violations.
"The real question is, do we want to be feeding the fire," he said.
"We suggest conditions in Colombia need to change radically before the United States can hand over aid and not expect that aid to end up in the hands of those committing human-rights violations."
Salinas said the admission by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia of involvement in the deaths of Gay and two companions is "one of the few times FARC acknowledged wrongdoing."
"But it's not enough to admit wrongdoing," he said.
FARC has said it will conduct an internal investigation into the killings. But Salinas said Amnesty International wants FARC to turn over the accused to civilian judicial authorities so the deaths can be fully investigated.
Winifred Tate, a research fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the deaths are indicative of the huge cost of the Colombian civil war that civilians feel everyday.
About 75 percent of the attacks on civilians are by government forces, but guerrilla groups like FARC are increasingly committing criminal acts, especially in outlying areas, she said.
Tensions have been growing because the U'wa tribe has resisted attempts by guerrilla groups to enter native lands, and are opposed to oil drilling there.
U.S. gives Colombian
rebels ultimatumThree Americans' killers must be
Reuters
brought to justice before
a stateside visitWASHINGTON -- The United States will not invite Colombian rebel leaders to visit the country until they bring to justice the guerrillas who kidnapped and killed three Americans last year, the State Department said yesterday.
Leaders of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), back from a fact-finding tour in Europe, said last week that they also hoped to visit the United States, which calls the FARC a "terrorist" group.
U.S. officials met FARC chiefs in Costa Rica in December 1998 with the permission of Colombian President Andres Pastrana, who is trying to make peace with the rebels. But after the Americans were killed, the U.S. ambassador in Bogota last March ruled out any fresh talks until the FARC brought the guerrillas to justice.
"We have made it clear that until they provide the justice for those they have killed, we are not interested in having another meeting," U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said yesterday.
The three Americans -- Terence Freitas of Oakland, Calif.; Ingrid Washinawatok, a resident of New York; and Lahe'ena'e Gay of Hawaii -- were kidnapped and killed a year ago while helping U'wa Indians in northeast Colombia protect their tribal lands from oil exploration.
But while U.S. officials said they would not speak with FARC leaders, the founder of America Online yesterday held face-to-face talks in Colombia with commanders of the guerrilla group and swapped hats with veteran rebel warlord Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda.
The meeting took place in a Switzerland-size area of Colombia's southeast jungle, which the government has demilitarized for peace talks with the FARC.
Emerging from his more than three hours of talks with rebel leaders, Jim Kimsey, who is also honorary AOL president, said he discussed ways to accelerate the government's year-old peace talks with the rebel group, which are taking place without any previous cease-fire deal.
"I'm not here as a representative of either the Colombian or U.S. government or America Online," he said. "I'm here as a U.S. citizen."
Kimsey said he told the FARC's war-hardened leadership there was enormous potential for investment in Colombia, which is Latin America's third-largest country. But he added, "Until there's peace, there's not an appetite to make big investments in Colombia."
Kimsey, who heads the world's No. 1 online service, is the second U.S. business leader known to have met leaders of the FARC, who are more used to adding up ill-gotten gains from kidnapping, extortion and "taxing" the drug trade than they are to chatting with legitimate entrepreneurs.
Richard Grasso, president of the New York Stock Exchange, visited the FARC-held region in June 1999 to meet Raul Reyes, a senior rebel commander who joined yesterday's talks as well.
