US District Judge Thomas Hogan is referring to the kidnapping by the FARC of three American contractors in February 2003 , whose stories were subsequently told in a Discovery Channel documentary. The three men ? Tom Howes, Marc Gonsalves, and Keith Stanstell ? had been contractors for a US government defense firm who were working on an anti-narcotics program when their plane crashed in rebel-held territory. Their Colombian escort, Luis Alcides Cruz, and US colleague, Thomas Janis, were promptly executed. The US Rewards for Justice program has offered US$5 million in reward for the conviction, and the Department of Defense is offering $300,000 and a US visa “for the successful resolution of this hostage situation.”

The call for the group to appear collectively in Washington is slated to run weekly through September. While this is a fantastic publicity stunt against the Marxist group in their own country, US jurisprudence requires a summons to be issued, and without a mailing address for the FARC, a public decry such as this one was well in order. In this case, the group as an entity along with FARC leader Ricardo Palmera (aka Simon Trinidad) , who is incarcerated in the US, were named on the summons. Palmera was extradited to the US in 2004 for ‘conspiring to kidnap’ the three US men. It is unlikely that any representative will appear for a court case, and as such, the group is likely to be charged in absentia. Talks of a prisoner swap in Colombia also abound, but this tactic has a long tradition in the country, and the chances of the government releasing imprisoned FARC terrorists are slim, for any hostage.