Posted on 06/06/2005 4:17:09 PM PDT by Lokibob
ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) - About 700 volunteers joined police, soldiers and FBI agents on Monday, combing scrubland and beaches on Aruba's southeastern tip in an unprecedented search for an Alabama teenager who vanished a week ago on a trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.
Aruba's government let 4,000 civil servants off work early at 2 p.m. to hunt for Natalee Holloway, 18, of Mountain Brook, Ala. The expanded search began a day after police charged two men in her disappearance.
The honors student vanished May 30 while on a five-day trip with more than 100 classmates celebrating their high school graduation. About 40 adults, including seven chaperones, accompanied them.
Kenneth Angela and three co-workers from Aruba's lottery company were among the hundreds who boarded 10 buses in the community of Santa Cruz, about six miles from the capital, Oranjestad, to be taken to the search site.
``It's the first time Aruba has done such a big search,'' said Angela, a 31-year-old lottery supervisor. ``We want to keep Aruba's name good. That's why we're here, to help find Natalee.''
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Forgive me for my ignorance, but were/what the Hell is Aruba? Furthermore I was told this is a place where one can have a good time and get laid to boot!
It is that true?
Aruba is the very southern most part of the Caribbean only 50 miles north of the coast of Venezuela, it is part of three islands, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, all former Dutch colonies,
I've been to Aruba and of all the Caribbean Islands I have ever been to I've never felt more safe, the people are friendly, clean organized island, etc, very small island
someone called into Scarborough Country and said he met the security guard they arrested, he said the guy was a great guy, warm and friendly, he would kid around with the man's seven year old, we thought all the staffers were friendly without being aggressive as they can be in other locales...
crikey I went clubbing with one of the bartenders and a wacko couple from Canada, the couple from Canada were the nutjobs - long story short the wife was freaking out because hubby and bartender left the bar for about an hour, I now realize hubby and bartender went out to score some drugs, I was of the mind, hey they are 2 men, nothing to worry about, we're in walking distance of our hotel, they'll be back, let's keep dancing, lots of cute guys here....
now my sister has been several times and she did get see a seamier side to Aruba on her last trip because she and her friend were hanging out with the water sports guy at her hotel, he was a Dutchman (we got Dutch blood) now this guy was also a drug dealer on the side and he took them to bars where perhaps the tourists don't hang out and some of the guys there were very aggressive but they weren't Arubian, they were South American....it was Carnavale that week so Aruba was packed with people from all over..now what my sister did say is she didn't fully appreciate until that last trip how the drugs were flowing on that otherwise safe island, I'm wondering if Natalee OD'd on something, died and someone panicked and dumped the body...that's my guess
now also on Scarborough Country, someone raised the question of why the FBI is there, tourists go missing all the time and the FBI is not called in and some were questioning how this case rates the FBI, given the FBI is already stretched, the speculation is we are not getting all of the story and one wonders whether this is a kidnapping situation, the family spokesperson, who wouldn't talk about the FBI, did say the family was still hopeful this girl was alive and would be found...
now why is that? after a week and some arrests - is it just denial or do they know something they aren't sharing? and yet the search parties continue?
is it me or does the mother seem awful calm considering the situation?
I'd be thinking South America, Columbia, if we are thinking kidnapping, maybe she ran into some Columbian drug lords, Aruba a big destination for Columbians....
hmmm, it is equally stupid going off with 3 white guys you just met at 2:00 am, especially when you are drunk, sorry, white guys do indeed rape, esp in large groups oh like football teams and frats, did you forget
- besides I believe one of the guys she alleged left with was a white guy from Holland, guess they didn't arrest him, yet, gee hope it wasn't my sister's drug dealer friend, LOL
speaking of which that reminds me of our high school trip to Italy,
we could have gotten into so much more trouble than we did,
we actually met the cops Rome has on patrol to keep tourists esp female from being taken advantage of by the male population and criminals....we were 15 and out without supervision...
we partied with the cops the next night, they were off duty, they were sweeties....
looks like Girls Gone Wild can easily become Girls Gone Missing....
sad but true
a friend and I went to Barbados in 1985, after finishing university, we frequented this one bar about 4 nights, great open air bar with mixed crowd - we met this nice Canadian guy who filled us in on the bar owner's mode of operation- the bar owner was a friend of this guy and also very front and centre, partying in the bar every night, he was very charming, the Canadian guy warned us that we were his type, blonde blue eyed and 5"6 ish and that when he was going in for the kill, he would start buying you B52's, then he would say, can I take you on the tour of the bar at which point he would lure a girl to his office upstairs and the door was the kind that automatically locked, if you catch my drift, so god knows what happened to the chicks he was targetting on the other nights we were there, but then he started buying us B52s and gave me the line about going on a tour but since we knew his game, we kept letting him buy us alcohol and making sure neither of us ended up alone with this guy....we thought it was funny at the time but in retrospect I never thought about what the creep may have been doing to other women, we were just lucky we had inside information - I wonder if that bar is still operating and he's still operating like that....
I imagine if you are inclined to bad behaviour, living in a tourist destination gives you lots of access and probably your victims are less likely to bring charges because of the inconvenience, and the island is small so you likely have friends in the police and elsewhere, esp this bar owner dude, his wife was the one with the money actually and she owned large chunks of the island, besides the resort and the bar...
"There were chaperones there, the kids were of legal drinking age, and [B] no one realized there was any danger. [/B]"
You're in a country that is not your own, the people around you are strangers and many of them are of another race, and the 'kids' you are chaperoning likely have never been out of Alabama, much less the USA -- no wonder 'no one realized there was any danger'.
When I was 21 on a round the world cruise, I was in Italy during a massive anti-American demonstration (I can read Italian, and the signs were all in Italian). A girl friend of mine from California waded into the middle of the crowd and started taking pictures. "Oh they won't bother me," she said. "I am an American!" Fortunately a wiser chaperone dragged her out of the crowd and explained to her that this crowd had gathered to demonstrate AGAINST AMERICANS, and take her away from the situation. It was the first time in her life she had ever heard of "Anti Americanism".
Eighteen year olds are not necessarily capable of mature judgment.
..Well, I still think this is what happened, plus the FBI came on board fairly quickly.
Well, bless their hearts. You reckon they were advised to wear their shoes when they left Alabama? Mt. Brook has one of the highest incomes per capita in the US. I expect, that not only have the kids been "out of Alabama" more than once, but they have also been out of the country more than once in their lives. As far as danger goes, how many posts have we read about how "safe" Aruba is? It is presented as one of the safest places to travel to. There are dangers everywhere. The fact any of these kids have survived going to downtown Birmingham proves they know about danger.
The Aruba government is very friendly to the United States...Their economy is dependent on the US...
The major hotels are owned and run by US corporations...The island's refinery is owned and run by the Valero Corporation. When you leave Aruba, you go through US Customs on the island, not when you arrive back in the states...So US governement employees are based there....Also I have seen Navy E-2s sitting on the tarmac at the Aruba airport...So military personnel are at least temporarily based there!
No wonder the Aruba government wants to find this girl...They do not need the bad publicity in the US....
My brother and his
wife take trips around the globe.
Recently, they both
told me that their sense
is that any where that's near
Venezuela
is a place no one
from America should be.
It's hard to believe
parents of school kids
would allow their children to
visit such a place.
(Although, I would guess,
parents in today's world
wouldn't have a clue
that Aruba is
close to Columbia and
Venezuela.)
I raised three daughters in what most would consider a priveledged, liberal Long Island town. Every one of them begged to go on the "senior trip". Every one of stayed home stayed home. They all hated me for a while but guess what, they're still among the living and have managed to get through the disappointment just fine.
Hmm....I think you need to clarify this statement.
You did for your daughters what you thought best for them. I think most parents try to do the same, no matter the background.
The color of the perps was a factor? How so?
Especially curious from an Alabaman .
What is that supposed to mean?
_______________________________________
I would like to think so.
Sources please. Where did you get all this information?
What about the Alabama of the past do you want to return?
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