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"These three are Americans. Why do I have to fight for them? I don't understand. Why doesn't their own country fight for them," said Jo Rosano of Bristol, Connecticut, dabbing tears as she spoke to Reuters in a Bogota hotel.
Her son Marc Gonsalves, together with Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell -- all civilians working for a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp. <NOC.N> -- were captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on a U.S.-funded mission to locate crops used to make cocaine in southern Colombia on Feb. 12, 2003.
Their Cessna surveillance plane crashed on a rugged hillside. Two other crew members who struggled from the Cessna's wreckage, an American Vietnam veteran and a Colombian army sergeant, were killed by the guerrillas, according to local peasants.
The 13,000-strong rebel army known by the Spanish initials FARC initially said it wanted to swap the men together with another group of about 70 hostages for hundreds of rebels held in government jails.
But the FARC over the weekend offered to negotiate directly with the U.S. government and said it would free the Americans in return for two high-ranking guerrillas who have been extradited to the United States.
The U.S. government rejected the offer on Monday.
"With respect to our policy about making concessions to terrorists, that policy remains unchanged. We do not," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, calling the liberation of the three men "a top priority of the United States."
Rosano was dismayed.
"The FARC wanted 500 guerrillas that are in the prisons here in Colombia, now they're asking for two. So is that right?" she said, tears running down her face.
"Now they just want two, so what's the problem now?" she said.
U.S. PUBLIC KNOWS LITTLE OF COLOMBIA, HOSTAGES
Rosano's 33-year-old son, who has a daughter and two stepchildren, has been caught up in a war the FARC has been waging for 41 years for socialist revolution. The conflict claims thousands of lives a year.
She believes the American public, absorbed by the conflict in Iraq, is largely ignorant of U.S involvement in Colombia, to which Washington has provided more than $3 billion in mainly military aid to fight rebels and the cocaine trade since 2000.
"Many, many people don't know that there are American hostages here, and I come here in hopes that somebody's heart will soften," she said.
The last news she had of her son, a former member of the Air Force, came two years ago when a Colombian journalist brought a videotape of the three Americans surrounded by heavily-armed FARC rebels in a secret camp.
"He said on the video that he would never give up, that he would never get to the point where he would want to kill himself," said Rosano.
The mother's attempts to obtain help from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally who is fiercely anti-FARC, also made little progress.
"When I was here last year, I wrote President Uribe a letter requesting to meet with him. But he never responded," she said.
Colombian authorities have said in the past they have had intelligence about the location of hostages but have not been able to act due to fears for their safety.
Rosano is convinced any attempt to snatch the men to freedom would end with their deaths, as when the FARC killed 10 hostages during a botched rescue attempt by Colombian troops in thick jungle in May 2003.
"God tells me in my heart my son is alive, and when I get mad he reminds me, 'Your son is alive and I'm watching over him.' God is the one who'll bring my son home -- not (U.S. President George) Bush or Uribe," she said.
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