COLOMBIA: Families of Hostages Still Pressing for a Humanitarian Swap

By Constanza Vieira Reprint | | Print |

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Dec 29 2004 (IPS) - For the families of politicians and soldiers held hostage by Colombia’s insurgents with a view to swapping them for imprisoned guerrillas – something that has been done under previous governments – this was not just another week.

For one thing, the deadline is approaching for an ultimatum issued by right-wing President Alvaro Uribe on Dec. 17: either FARC – Colombia’s main insurgent group – releases 63 hostages by Dec. 30, or rebel commander Simón Trinidad, who is in jail, will be extradited to the United States.

The hostages in the hands of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) include former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped three years ago in February, 24 other politicians, 34 soldiers and police, and three U.S. citizens who were seized after their plane crashed while they were on an intelligence mission.

According to the Uribe administration, there is also a German hostage.

Trinidad, whose real name is Ricardo Palmera, was arrested a year ago in Quito, Ecuador and deported to Colombia. Since March, he has faced an extradition request from the United States, where he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking and kidnapping.

But the guerrilla leader, a U.S.-educated former banker and economist who took part as a negotiator in the failed peace talks between FARC and the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002), believes his extradition is a sure thing, which means any promise of a release of hostages would be meaningless.

In an interview with the weekly publication El Espectador, he said he would “stage a battle on the political front,” in the U.S. courts.

But Trinidad’s imminent extradition was not discussed at the 10th annual vigil for the hostages in Colombia, which took place on Dec. 25.

The vigil, which is traditionally held on the last Saturday of December, is actually a live radio programme broadcast from Bolívar Plaza in central Bogota from midnight to 6:00 AM by journalist Herbin Hoyos.

Throughout the year, Hoyos dedicates his Saturday night programme to airing messages for the hostages, from the Radio Caracol station.

In his weekly programme “Voices of Kidnapping”, the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, siblings and friends of hostages reach out to their loved ones in messages that they have left during the week on an answering machine at the radio station.

But during the year-end vigil in Bolívar Plaza, their messages, which are delivered personally or by telephone, are aired live.

“For all of our listeners in the mountains, for anyone who is being held hostage anywhere in Colombia, we greet you from Bolívar Plaza in the Colombian capital,” Hoyos says at the start of the special programme.

“Just as you have spent the 365 days of this year living rough, we will spend the night outside here, asking for your release,” Hoyos tells the hostages and kidnapping victims, who totalled 2,201 in 2003, according to the National Planning Department (DNP).

Colombia, which is in the midst of a four-decade armed conflict, is the world leader in kidnappings. Some of the victims are taken specifically as hostages, to be swapped for imprisoned rebels, while others are kidnapped for ransom.

Although the DNP blames just over 20 percent of all kidnappings on the guerrillas, the Free Country Foundation holds the insurgents responsible for 48 percent of the cases.

The rest of the kidnappings, whatever the proportion, are attributed to common criminals or even family custody or inheritance disputes.

Some cases are also blamed on members of the security forces, who reportedly form part of bands of kidnappers.

“We are all fine, and we think of you a lot”, “our little girl turned 15”, “your son has learned how to read, and says he wants to know his daddy” are just a few of the heart-wrenching messages delivered, often in broken voices.

Hostages and kidnapping victims who have been released or escaped say the radio programme is listened to religiously by all of the captives who are allowed to do so.

For some of the soldiers, this is their seventh Christmas in captivity, while others have been held hostage for five or six years. In May 2003, eight soldiers and officers, Antioquia governor Guillermo Gaviria, and his peace adviser, former defence minister Gilberto Echeverri, were killed in a failed rescue attempt.

That is a nightmare scenario that the hostages’ families do not want to see repeated. Of the captives, only Betancourt has said that she supports military rescue attempts, but only if they are successful. She also stated, in a video message made public by the guerrillas in mid-2003, that the hostages’ release should be negotiated.

FARC carried out prisoner-for-hostage exchanges with the governments of both Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) and Pastrana.

In Bolívar Plaza on Saturday night, an elderly man wearing a traditional felt hat and ruana (thick woolen poncho typical of the Andean region) says “Alvaro Uribe, I greet you, and ask you to do your part to negotiate a humanitarian swap for all of our sons, our police officers and soldiers, who are being held hostage.

“I ask for that openness, so they can be freed. We don’t want any more pain, we don’t want any more kidnappings, don’t do it any more, guerrillas,” he tells his radio listeners.

Uribe, who has taken a hard-line stance against the rebels since he took office in August 2002, has consistently refused to negotiate a humanitarian swap. In his view, there is no civil war in Colombia, which means the guerrillas are not combatants, but mere “terrorists”, and no negotiations are possible.

“Hostages of Colombia, my Juliancho: I have faith in God that you will all soon come home. But until that happens, I wish for you the gift of life from Father God, for 2005. Peace, much internal peace, much patience…there is hope,” says Emperatriz de Guevara, the mother of Captain Julián Guevara.

The captain’s daughter, Ana María, says: “Although today (Christmas day) my mommy did everything she could to make me happy, I missed you so much…The baby Jesus brought me a bicycle. I miss you and I want you to know that you were in my thoughts at every moment.”

The 34 families of military hostages belong to Asfamipaz, a group led by Marleny Orjuela, who demands that the guerrillas provide proof that their loved ones are still alive. It has been 19 months since they received the last evidence.

“That is our minimum right – to receive a letter, a photo, a video,” says Orjuela, addressing her message to the guerrilla commanders. She also sent birthday wishes to Betancourt, who was born on Dec. 25.

“Simón Trinidad’s extradition is going to complicate the possibility of a humanitarian exchange,” Orjuela told IPS.

She said the government should accept the Catholic church’s suggestion that Uribe postpone for several weeks the deadline he gave the guerrillas for releasing the 63 hostages.

“The political will that both the government and the FARC guerrillas express in the media should be translated into reality by the signing of a humanitarian accord, which is the only option we have,” she said.

On Monday, FARC issued an open letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in which the insurgent group asks – for the second time – for a hearing before the U.N. General Assembly.

The guerrillas called on Annan for the U.N., the Vatican, and eight countries, with the support of the International Red Cross and the Catholic church in Colombia, to help negotiate and oversee a hostage-for-prisoner swap.

Angela Rodríguez de Pérez, the wife of former senator Luis Eladio Pérez (who has been held by FARC for 3.5 years), said Uribe’s ultimatum was not a good idea, because “it does nothing to favour contacts between the two sides.”

She told IPS that she had no doubt that behind Trinidad’s extradition “lie negotiations for the release of the three U.S. hostages.”

The clamour for a humanitarian swap “has not been understood or heard by either side. Both remain intransigent. We families will have to continue working for the freedom of the hostages, for negotiations and an agreement between the two sides,” said Rodríguez.