Civil Society, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA: A New Life for Freed Hostages and Their Families

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Feb 27 2008 (IPS) - Wednesday marked the start of a new chapter in the life of Ángela Rodríguez. Her husband, Luis Eladio Pérez, who was taken hostage in June 2001 by Colombia’s FARC guerrillas, returned home after being held captive in the jungle for nearly seven years.

Pérez was one of four former lawmakers unilaterally released by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) Wednesday as a gesture of goodwill to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba, whose role as mediators in the hostage talks was abruptly cut short in November by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

The other hostages freed along with Pérez were Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltrán and Jorge Eduardo Gechem, who were kidnapped in separate incidents in 2001 and 2002.

Despite Uribe’s decision to cancel Chávez’s role as a mediator, the FARC unilaterally released former politicians Consuelo González and Clara Rojas on Jan. 10, handing them over to a humanitarian mission led by the Venezuelan government and the Red Cross.

Rodríguez and her two children had reached the point where they talked about their husband and father in the past tense – not because they thought he would not return, but “because we knew very little about the Luis Eladio of today.”

“I have always been optimistic,” she told IPS at midnight on Feb. 2, after hearing on the news that the FARC had announced that they would release her husband. “I have always thought they would come back. I believe the FARC are playing a political card.”

“I definitely think that the Luis Eladio taken away by the FARC will not be the Luis Eladio who returns. And the family that he left will not be the same family that he will find on his return. First of all, he will find that his children are very mature, that they have already decided on the direction their lives are taking,” she said.

Sergio, 30, is married and holds a professional job.

Carolina, four years younger, has already set the date for her wedding, in April. A prediction made by Democratic U.S. Representative William Delahunt on a visit to Bogotá in January is about to come true: “Your father will give you away at your wedding, you’ll see.”

It was Carolina who brought Delahunt and a group of other U.S. Democratic legislators, who have been closely following the hostage talks, to Colombia.

The FARC are holding around 40 hostages, including former legislators, soldiers, three U.S. military contractors, and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, in jungle camps with the aim of negotiating a humanitarian swap of hostages for some 400-500 imprisoned insurgents.

Sergio was studying in the United States and Carolina in Canada, and both were close to graduating from university when their father was taken hostage.

“They immediately returned to Colombia, and when they tried to gain credit for their studies, none of their courses were recognised. They had to start from scratch. These kids have really shown a great deal of strength. Because starting your university studies over in the middle of such a crisis…,” said Rodríguez.

Right after Pérez was kidnapped, his alternate claimed his seat in the Senate.

Rodríguez had abandoned her work as an antique dealer just before the regional economic crisis broke out in the late 1990s, which in Colombia hit this luxury sector particularly hard.

All of a sudden, the family found itself without an income, and Rodríguez had to pay off the debts incurred by her husband in the recent election campaign.

“I have dedicated the past six years and seven months entirely to fighting for the release of Luis and the rest of the hostages. I was very committed to the search for a humanitarian accord,” said Rodríguez.

“I worked hard for a humanitarian exchange, along with my great friend, (former) president López,” she said, looking at a black and white photo of former Liberal Party president Alfonso López Michelsen (1974-1978), which sits in a frame on an upright piano in the living room of her home – she moved into a smaller apartment, that her husband has never seen.

As president, López did not sign Protocols I and II to the Geneva Convention in 1977, pertaining to civil wars, and even tried to block their approval, in alliance with Chile and Cambodia.

But before Colombia’s new constitution was approved in 1991, he admitted his error, and soon become a leading defender of international humanitarian law (IHL).

He also argued that states have the obligation to actively protect their citizens, including those held by the enemy – a position that is backed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“He forged the way for a humanitarian agreement,” said Rodríguez. “It was he who began to talk about IHL, about the ‘humanisation’ of the conflict, and who began to recognise the conflict itself, in order to start seeking negotiations towards an accord.”

López did not believe that respect for IHL would lead to a peaceful outcome in Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. But he did see it as an instrument that would help alleviate the pain caused by the war.

Colombia adhered to the two Geneva Convention protocols in 1992 and 1994, although none of the armed groups involved in the conflict have fully respected them.

After a reform of the penal code that stiffened sentences for convicted guerrillas, the FARC began to seize and hold members of the military and police captured in combat.

President Uribe has not acknowledged that there is a civil war in Colombia.

But the FARC considers both the hostages and the imprisoned guerrillas as prisoners of war.

For the hostages’ families, “that has been one of the fiercest battles,” said Rodríguez, because if the civilians held by the rebels are not “hostages seized by a party in an armed conflict, then where does that leave them?”

“I have the impression that the FARC are recognising and complying with IHL with regard to (civilian) hostages,” she said, adding that she believes that the rebels “are going to continue handing them over to President Hugo Chávez.”

“There is no doubt that negotiations of a humanitarian accord will be between combatants, as IHL states,” she said.

“I believe it is very important that we continue to support the rest of the families. It is a moral duty on our part to continue backing efforts to achieve a humanitarian accord and the release of all of the hostages. I feel very committed to all of those who are still in captivity,” she said.

At the same time as the hostages were released on Wednesday, the FARC leadership issued a statement saying their unilateral release is an achievement of Chávez and Córdoba’s “humanitarian persistence and sincere concern for peace in Colombia.”

The next step should be “the withdrawal of the military from (the municipalities of) Pradera and Florida for 45 days, in the presence of the guerrillas, and with the international community as observers,” in order to free the rest of the hostages.

In Colombia, the rebel group’s message was interpreted as an end to the unilateral release of civilian hostages.

The FARC communiqué warned of a “huge war operation” in the region – involving 18,000 troops, according to Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chapín – which could still lead to a “fatal outcome,” attributable to the government, if it attempts a military rescue, according to the insurgents.

EXCHANGES AND RELEASES

In May 1997, the government of Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) negotiated an agreement with the FARC for a 30-day demilitarisation of a 13,000 sq km area in the municipality of Cartagena del Chairá in the southern province of Caquetá, which led to the unilateral release of 70 members of the military by the guerrillas.

The first swap of hostages for imprisoned rebels took place in June 2001, during the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002), in the context of peace talks with the FARC in a 42,000 sq km zone in the southern municipality of Caguán. On that occasion, 55 members of the military and police were exchanged for 14 imprisoned guerrillas.

After the swap, the insurgents unilaterally freed another 304 soldiers, only holding in captivity officers and non-commissioned officers, several of whom have now spent over 10 years in captivity.

And in March 2006, the FARC unilaterally released two police officers.

For his part, Uribe released from prison a senior FARC member, Rodrigo Granda, known as the group’s “foreign minister”, at the urging of French President Nicolas Sarkozy last June.

Under the argument that it was drawing attention to the question of the civil war, in August 2000 the FARC began taking civilian hostages, which is prohibited by IHL. The first was then congressman Óscar Tulio Lizcano, who is still being held by the guerrillas.

The FARC have seized a total of 24 civilian hostages, 13 of whom have died (at least two were killed by their captors, who have standing orders to kill them if the military closes in on their position), one – Fernando Araújo – who escaped and is now foreign minister, and the six released this year.