In a remarkable display of employer responsibility, a Canadian mine-drilling executive has willingly become a guerrilla hostage in Colombia after trading places with an employee he had never met.
The swap took place at a remote mountain pass in Colombia on Oct. 6, but Canadian authorities did not release details until reports appeared in several Canadian newspapers Friday.The executive, Norbert Reinhart, 49, exchanged himself for drill foreman Ed Leonard, who was captured June 24 by ransom-seeking leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Reinhart's wife, Casey, said the two Canadians met for the first time during the trade.
"(Norbert) said to him, `Your shift is done, you can go home,' " Casey Reinhart told reporters.
Leonard is now back home in British Columbia, while Casey Reinhart is trying to explain her husband's absence to their two small daughters.
"My first reaction was, `Don't do it,' " Casey Reinhart said. "But you can't help but admire his nobility in doing it."
Canadian authorities aren't quite so admiring.
Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said Friday that he advised Norbert Reinhart against making the swap.
"We had met very actively with the family. We had frankly recommended that that particular deal not be done," Axworthy said in Ottawa. "These kind of private deals should not be struck and really should have been done through the Colombian government."
Axworthy said negotiations are now in the hands of Colombian authorities. "The new Colombian government wants to actively pursue this question."