El gran rescate (the grand rescue) of the trapped miners a success!

As we write this (2342H Manila time, 13 October, Wednesday), 16 of the 33 trapped miners have been brought back to the surface from their refuge 700 meters below the earth.

The escape capsule called Phoenix first went down at 23:36PM (Chile, 12 October) and came up with the first survivor at 00:12AM (Chile, 13 October), the stoutest of them, Florencio Avalos.  The second, Mario Sepulveda had a bagful of rocks to distribute to the rescuers as souvenirs, and he went around to cheer the welcoming crowd.  Carlos Mamani, a Bolivian and the only foreigner among the miners, was the fourth.

On hand to welcome them back together with tearful yet joyful families was President Sebastian Pinera himself.

Luis Urzua, the leader of the 33 miners, will be the last to go up; he was quoted as saying the captain is the last to abandon ship.

11October top story on the last 3 to be raised.

 For an appreciation of how the grand rescue was mounted using a new technology, El Mercurio printed out graphic illustrations of the entire story in two-page features below, topmost on 13 October and the bottom on 10 October. These are easy to follow (and understand) even if one does not know Spanish.

13 October spreads.

10 October spreads.

"Mono Jojoy"

"Finally, he fell!" - Q'hubo, Columbia (24 Sept)

We were wondering if "Mono Jojoy" and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla arm of the Colombian Communist Party, would be ideological relatives of the NPA (Bagong Hukbong Bayan or New People's Army) and its kumanders in the Philippines.

We looked for some patriotic or revolutionary meaning of this alias but found none although we learned that "mono" refers to a monkey in Spanish.  May be it was a term of endearment of FARC supporters for "Jorge Briceño Suárez", another alias of the real Victor Julio Suarez Rojas. He's thought to be the FARC's most revered and yet feared general who headed the Eastern Bloc, said to be the most powerful fighting division.

He was dead at 57 on Thursday, September 23, two days after the Colombian military, the police and the Ministry of Defense launched Operation Sodom (does this mean, "take them from behind?") 200 miles south of Bogota.  This is how BBC (Sept 25) described the assault:

"In the early hours of Wednesday 22 September, 78 aircraft headed for the area known as La Escalera in the Macarena mountain range in Meta province. They dropped dozens of bombs on Mono Jojoy's camp, which Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera has described as "the mother of all lairs" for its size and the number of hidden tunnels it had. About 400 members of the Colombian special forces then abseiled from helicopters and surrounded the camp. After hours of fighting, another 400 soldiers and police moved in on the camp, taking it in the early hours of Thursday morning. General Javier Florez, the commander of the joint task force leading the attack, said his men were able to identify Mono Jojoy by his scars, eye colour and the fact he carried insulin for his diabetes."

And this is how Hoy (25 Sept) of Ecuador illustrated the Sodoma:

"GPS in Mono's boots gave him away"

 There were two causes of Mono Jojoy's fall:  treachery--a deep penetration agent (a police sergeant) in his unit for the past two years--and modern technology--a GPS chip embedded in his boots.  Thus, his physical whereabouts was known far and wide by the military.

"Traitor and hidden GPS ended Mono Jojoy" - inside page, Las Ultimas Noticias, Chile (25 Sept)

"Jojoy's boots guided the bombs"- Q'hubo, Colombia (25 Sept)

"A chip betrays Mono Jojoy" - La Hora, Ecuador (25 Sept)

  

"Secret hero pursued Jojoy" - El Tiempo, Colombia (26 Sept)

"Two years of infiltration .." - El Mercurio, Chile (26 Sept)

 "The FARC has faced serious setbacks in recent years," Colombia Reports said, "with high-level commander "Raul Reyes" killed by a Colombian air strike on Ecuadorean territory in March 2008. The group's founder and supreme leader "Manuel Marulanda" died of natural causes in 2008. An airstrike by the Colombian armed forces on Sunday killed FARC commander "Domingo Biojo," political leader of the organization's 48th Front, along with at least 26 other rebels. Current supreme commander "Alfonso Cano" remains at large."

Below is the roster of top-level FARC officials who have fallen since "Sonia" was captured in February in 2004:

El Salvador, Colombia (24 Sept)

Sources:

1.   "FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" killed. (2010, September 23). Colombia Reports.  Retrieved from http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12002-mono-jojoy-killed-colombian-media.html

2.   "Colombian police examine Farc rebels' laptops." (2010, September 25).  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11412720.

2.   Jerry McDermott. (2010, September 23). "My Meeting with Mono Jojoy".  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11402694.