A New Year, ARC’s Founding and Commitment

A New Year; ARC’s Mission Remains the Same

This New Year, we reflect on what ARC was able to accomplish along with its partners and supporters. Airan Berry and Luke Denman are still being held unlawfully inside the Helicoide in Venezuela. This situation is a constant reminder of why we need to keep fighting for them, and why we need your support.

American Rescue Coalition:

As soon as Airan’s and Luke’s families learned about their capture, they started working to get them home and assure their humane treatment. These families founded American Rescue Coalition to formalize those efforts after realizing that accomplishing their goals would require fundraising. Their efforts to help Luke and Airan are helping other Americans held in Venezuela as well.

Using investigators, lawyers, regional experts, and other professionals, American Rescue Coalition was able to verify signs of life, locate where Luke and Airan were being held, and provide valuable information to cooperative people in the USG, reporters, and NGOs. From there, ARC was able to retain the services of lawyers in Venezuela who could represent Luke and Airan in the kangaroo courts in which they were tried. These lawyers have done all they could to help keep the families informed and make sure that Luke and Airan are not lost or forgotten in the murky waters of the Venezuelan court system.

Through ARC's growing network of contacts, they have been providing weekly food deliveries and laundry service; doing all their best to keep the two men fed and healthy during their interment.

A Snag:

Thanks to the donations we’ve received through GoFundMe, we’ve been able to send care packages to Luke and Airan; not only is the funding important, but the noise generated through this social media platform was also critical in raising awareness and showing support for these men.

Unfortunately, GoFundMe unceremoniously took our fundraiser down – no warnings or information given. Despite repeated attempts to contact them, we have received little in return as to the reason for this, other than them sending us their miles-long terms of use legal documentation, not citing any particular section within their documents. All this despite being able to operate our campaign there for over a year without any issue.

As stated, the social outreach aspect of platforms like GoFundMe is too important to ignore, so we will be looking into other similar avenues to raise funds and awareness, like GiveSendGo. We will make more announcements about this soon.

How you can help:

Mark Denman, brother of Luke Denman, in D.C.

Including sending care packages to Luke and Airan containing clothing, books, vitamins, hygienic items, and food, the direct generosity of our supporters has also allowed us to take trips to Washington, D.C. to plead our case. This support has made a real tangible difference. Thanks to the support we have received and the work we continue to do, Airan and Luke were also very recently visited, in their Venezuelan prison, by top US hostage negotiator and retired US Army Special Forces officer Roger Carstens, serving as SPEHA (Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs). He reported that he was very impressed with their character, quoting them as saying that if there were any chance for Americans to return home, it should be those of the “Citgo 6” (six other men being wrongfully detained in the Venezuelan Helicoide prison) first, as they have been held prisoner longer, and deserve to go home and be with their families. We hope this message resonates with those in D.C.

Roger D. Carstens, SPEHA

Through the generosity of the Amer Fakhoury Foundation, we have also been able to attend a protest held in D.C. a few weeks ago, which stirred up more attention, prompting yet another meeting from Roger Carstens with family members at the protest representing Luke and Airan.

Contributing writer and ARC team member, Isabeau Fitzgerald, was also given the opportunity to sit down with Cesar Camejo. Cesar was brave and gracious enough to share with ARC what his two years spent unlawfully detained in the Helicoide were like, painting a far more dire picture about Luke and Airan’s position.

All we can do is keep making noise and attempting to raise awareness in the social and political space. Very real, very practical means of support come through donations made by you, which help us to not only send critical items to Luke and Airan and ensure humane treatment, but to also maintain a complicated network to facilitate these methods of distribution. Their visits from local representation and care packages not only help meet their physical and mental needs, but this sends an important message to those who are holding them; that we are keeping a careful eye on them.

Families were able to send Airan and Luke Christmas cards

An example of items we are able to ship or deliver domestically from maintaining a complicated distribution chain involving people we have come to trust through careful vetting

We have learned very quickly that a situation like this puts massive strain, not just mentally, but financially, on the families of hostages like Luke and Airan. To continue to help these men, and with our sincere gratitude, we ask that you help by donating here: Donation Page

We hope that you and yours have had a Happy New Year, and we sincerely thank you for reading, and for your continued support.