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Gold Hill man among kidnapped oil workers By Bill Kettler A Gold Hill man and nine other oil workers were kidnapped Thursday in Ecuador and flown across the border into Colombia. Ecuadoran officials said Steve Derry, 40, and five other Americans were seized at gunpoint before dawn in the El Coca region, 150 miles southeast of the capital, Quito. A Chilean, an Argentine and two Frenchmen also were taken. Derry was working as a helicopter mechanic for Erickson Air-Crane. The Central Point company�s giant helicopters were working in Ecuador for a Spanish oil exploration company. Congressman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said two other Erickson employees were among the five Americans seized. The U.S. Embassy in Quito would not confirm the names of other Americans, saying their families were being notified. Derry, a Crater High School graduate, had been in Ecuador several months. He did not fear for his safety, said his mother, Leona, who lives in Idaho. "Where they were, things were all right," she said. "But they didn�t go into the towns or anything." Derry had made several trips to South America for Erickson, said Cliff Combs, an acquaintance from Gold Hill. Combs said petty thefts seemed to be Derry�s biggest concern. "I talked with him when he�d come back," Combs said. "I asked him if it�s safe. He said �Yeah, it�s OK, but sometimes the natives steal things.� " Ecuadoran officials told reporters there that 15 gunmen ambushed Derry and the others at 4 a.m. in the oil encampment of Tivacuno, about 47 miles south of the Ecuador-Colombia border. Violence has increased in the jungle around the border during the past year as Colombia�s guerrilla war spilled across national boundaries. An Ecuadoran military communiqu� said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) claimed it carried out the kidnapping in retaliation for "Plan Colombia" � a $7.5 billion Colombian initiative to fight cocaine traffickers. The United States has pledged $1.3 billion to the plan. An Ecuadoran government spokesman said no official word from FARC had been received.Erickson Air-Crane officials declined to discuss the kidnapping."At this point we�re not making any public comment, and that�s the end of the story," said Lee Ramage, Erickson�s operations director in Central Point.Congressman Walden said he had been in touch with Erickson officials and the U.S. State Department. "At this time there�s not a lot of information," he said. "It�s unclear where (the victims) are."We�re getting more involved down there," he said, referring to the anti-drug campaign, "and the State Department needs to recognize that our people are going to be at risk."A spokesman for the Ecuadoran government called the kidnappings "an isolated act." But he made no mention of another kidnapping in September 1999, when an armed group seized eight oil workers � seven Canadians and an American � as well as three Spaniards and a Belgian-born Canadian woman from an oil-rich jungle region. The Spaniards and the woman, who were tourists in the area, were released a short time later. The oil workers were held for 99 days. It was never confirmed that ransom was paid nor was the identity of the kidnappers confirmed. (The Associated Press contributed to this story.) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.