‘Hostages Are Alive’

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32385, 26 August 1970, Page 13

‘Hostages Are Alive’

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MONTEVIDEO, August 25. A guerrilla organisation announced yesterday that a kidnapped American agriculture expert and a Brazilian diplomat were alive and well, but they apparently threatened further abductions of United States Aid officials.

In their first communique in two weeks, the Tupamaros guerrillas also said cryptically that “sentence will not I f

be passed” on the United States Aid official, Mr Claude Fly, aged 65, and the Brazilian diplomat, Mr Aloysio Didas Gomide, aged 41, while gaoled guerrillas remained in police custody. The guerrillas however did not make cleat what they meant by “sentence.” Although they said that Mr Gomide and Dr Fly were well, the Tupamaros added that their executive command had ordered those guarding the pair to execute them if police or troops found theii hiding place.

At the same time the guerrillas said, without further explanation: “The executive command has ordered the start of repressive acts against oligarchs in the gov-

ernment, the repressive forces, and American advisers.”

The communique was found at a Montevideo petrol station after anonymous calls to a local radio station and two newspapers.

The guerrillas, who kidnapped Mr Gomide on July 31, and Dr Fly on August 7, executed a U.S. Aid official, Mr Daniel Mitrione, 16 days ago after the Uruguayan Government had flatly rejected their demands for the release of all political prisoners. Mr Mitrione, aged 50, and the father of nine children, was an employee of the United States Agency for International Development and an adviser to the Uruguayan police on security techniques.