The Colombian Three and their ordeals after FARC date

See the internationalism of Irish republican army and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia another example of revolutionary brother hood

The Irish have a great liking for giving a neat nickname to a group or a cause. We have, 'the Troubles', then, the Birmingham Three'; and 'the Gilford Five' and, just recently, 'the Colombian Three'.

For the record, the latter are - James Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley, the first of whom has now penned a painstaking account of their tribulations in Colombian jails after the three were picked up there in a peace zone where they met members of FARC in June 2001.

For readers not familiar with FARC, they are the Colombian equivalent of the IRA and, given the three Irishmen's political backgrounds, it was no big surprise that the Colombian authorities deemed they were up to no good.

The case against them, of being there to educate FARC guerillas in bomb-making techniques, was hardly made any easier for the three when it was quickly discovered they were travelling on false passports.

So, for over four years, they were dragged from one jail to the next, though they spent most of their time in Bogotá Prison, as they pleaded their innocence, before being finally found, 'not guilty'.

Their ordeals are now penned in an easy to read paperback, 'Colombia Jail Journal' written by the artist of the three, James Monaghan whose cell sketches percolate the 274 pages. It is amazing how many books by Irish authors are set in prison, most of them autobiographical, most notably Brendan Behan's 'Borstal Boy'.

His experiences were brutal. Here, there is always the hint of personal threat, not so much from prison guards but from the 'paramilitaries', that unaccountable, shadowy force who gave rogue units of the regular Colombian Army carte blanche to ethnically cleanse a local area they perceived as giving support to FARC.

Often times, they too were arrested and put away to keep the Americans happy. There is remarkable evidence in Monaghan's book at the pervasive involvement of the US in Colombia in ensuring the military remained in control of the government. Reacting to pressure from liberals, the US 'advisers' (aka military experts) stipulated that none of the US Blackhawk helicopters should be used for ethnic cleansing, hence the role given to the 'paramilitaries'.

The three Irishmen have barely got used to their cell in La Modelo Prison, Bogotá when they are catcalled by paramilitary prisoners and an explosion is heard above them as they queue up to phone home. They are immediately whisked out of there to another jail and, always, via an airport, despite the fact they are either driven in a well-guarded van, their legs manacled or transferred by heliocopter, with two escort choppers in the air fior company.

Readers will recall that at around June 2001 when the three were picked up that the present peace talks were going well. Then this. For SF leader, Gerry Adams, the arrest of Connolly, when he was asked about it, wrong-footed him. 'He's not one of ours', he said firstly, then later admitted that Connolly was, 'our man in Cuba'.

The talks survived as we know, but whose hand was at the tiller in the men's eventual departure from Colombia? For, despite the fact the judge at their trial found them not guilty, his decision was appealed and the three released on bail.

As the author told RTE's Charlie Bird on 5th August, 2005 when asked if there was a deal between the Irish government and Sinn Fein (in order to secure the peace agreement here), and, 'who helped you to return?', Monaghan replied: 'There hasn't been a deal of any sort. Who helped us to return? - That would endanger those involved'.

In other words, there is a second book in the wings,

So, are they guilty or not? It seems not. The US forensic report linking them to a FARC 'school' was subsequently rubbished by an independent expert and, certainly in Monaghan's case, his credentials for being where he was arrested seem justified.

At that stage, he was a full-time director of a Dublin-based group that helped former 'political' prisoners reintegrate into society. His job was funded by the Irish government as part of the peace process.

'We recognised', he tells us, 'the need to study other situations and see how conflict resolution processes were developing. To do that, we knew it was necessary to meet face to face with others in different countries who were engaged in broadly similar processes'.

So, why the false passports?

Well, here too, his case is reasonably put. All three were former political prisoners (though Monaghan denies in the book of having been in the IRA), and they had previously come a cropper getting through Customs.

As a purely 'prison' book, this one isn't as suffocating as most others. For the most part, they could count on the support of fellow FARC prisoners who, as here, enforced discipline, funnily enough with the cooperation of the dreaded 'paramilitaries'. So, there is no evidence of any brutality by guards, more the threat from others and, at the end of the day, the Colombian Three owe a lot to people like Caitríona Ruane (now the North's Education Minister, who had been based in Colombia and had contacts there), and was a regular prison visitor, and some high-powered p[eople from the Irish Embassy and government.

One dreads to think if the three hadn't that support, especially in a country where being a 'gringo' (stranger) was bad enough, but to be a perceived IRA man a 11 times worse. One has only to look in at the ongoing, 'Banged Up Abroad' TV series.

Had the three lost their appeal, they could have been facing another 20 years in a Colombian jail, despite, 'the legal judgment in our case being the most significant in Colombia in the past 100 years'.

And, as with all good books, we're left with a tantalising ending