Adventurer-author kidnapped by paramilitaries
Robert Pelton Young has been kidnapped by right wing paramilitaries in Columbia. They have have promised to free him. Let’s hope so.
Young has written a number of books about travelling in seriously dangerous areas. He was the first journalist to interview the “American Taliban”, John Walker Lindh. He was able to do this because he was as respected by our Special Forces as he was by the Taliban and warlords. Not an easy feat.
In one book he details two rules for travelling in dangerous places.
1) Be nice to everyone. The man next to you on the bus could be a rebel commander.
2) Just because they live in a mud hut doesn’t mean they can’t be every bit as perceptive, intelligent, and witty as you are.
Let’s pray he comes home soon.
“The author of the travel book “The World’s Most Dangerous Places” was kidnapped with two other Americans near the Colombia-Panama border, police said Tuesday.
Author Robert Young Pelton, 47, of Redondo Beach, Megan A. Smaker, 22, of Oakland and Mark Wedeven, whose hometown wasn’t released, were traveling Saturday through a lawless area used by Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary groups for drug and arms trafficking, authorities said. Pelton was researching a story for National Geographic’s Adventure Magazine.
Carlos Castano, leader of Colombia’s violent right-wing paramilitary groups, told Reuters that the three Americans had been taken into custody by his forces to protect them from leftist guerrillas belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He said they would be turned over soon to the Roman Catholic Church.”