Ecuador: Criminals Snatched Oilmen

The gunmen who kidnapped 10 foreigners in a stolen helicopter from Ecuador's oil-rich northeast jungle last week are "international criminals" with no identifiable political cause, government spokesman Alfredo Negrete said Thursday.

He appeared to reverse his government's initial allegation that Colombia's largest guerrilla group had seized the foreigners.

"What we have been able to rule out is that it was an act of terrorism or political kidnapping because we have no political, ideological or economic demands whatsoever," Negrete said.

Although no ransom demand had been received, he told reporters that investigators now believe the kidnapping was carried out by "international criminals," whose members are "primarily Colombians, Ecuadoreans," and possibly other nationalities.

The description was similar to accounts of an as-yet unidentified armed group that last year kidnapped an American and seven Canadians working on a pipeline in another oil-producing part of Ecuador's northeast jungle. Witnesses said that armed band spoke with Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian accents.

The gunmen, numbering about 25, reportedly wore military fatigues and claimed to be fighting to force the government and oil companies to respect Indian tribes in the Amazon.

The Canadian-based pipeline company that employed the men has never confirmed widespread reports that a $3.5 million ransom was paid to gain their release after 100 days in captivity.

Authorities say that 40 or more gunmen participated in last week's kidnapping of five Americans, a New Zealander, a Chilean, an Argentine and two Frenchmen. The victims were working at oil camps in the El Coca region, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of the capital.

Ecuador's military and the vice president initially named the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's largest rebel movement, as the culprits. They said the act was in retaliation for Plan Colombia - an anti-narcotics initiative backed by a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package.

But the rebel group has denied any involvement.

The French captives, Jany Marcellin and Jean Louis Froidurot, managed to escape on Saturday, and on Monday were picked up by a military patrol near Lago Agrio, a jungle town near the border.

The helicopter, which military sources said Marcellin and Froidurot were forced to pilot, was found last Friday abandoned just inside the Ecuadorean border near a river that separates this country from Colombia.

By GONZALO SOLANO