COLOMBIA: 'Proof-of-Life' Videos Feed Hopes of Hostages' Families

• by Constanza Vieira (bogotÁ)
• Tuesday, August 18, 2009
• Inter Press Service

She had just seen videos released by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) showing her son and another hostage, police officer Guillermo Javier Solórzano.

The videos, broadcast on Monday, were handed over by the leftwing rebels as 'proof-of-life' for the 25-year-old Sanmiguel, the FARC's most recent hostage, who was captured in combat in May 2008, and 33-year-old Solórzano, seized in June 2007.

'Be strong. I am not defeated. This is just one of the risks I faced in my job,' Sanmiguel said in one of the videos, to try to calm his family's fears.

The videos were the third proof-of-life provided for Solórzano.

The families of 21 other members of the military and police being held hostage by the FARC – some for more than a decade – were frustrated this time, hoping for some word of their loved ones as well.

'More 'proof-of-life' will be received in the next few days; it is important for the families to known this,' said Liberal Party Senator Piedad Córdoba, the head of the Colombianas y Colombianos por la Paz (CCPP – Colombians for Peace) movement, which has been holding a public dialogue with the FARC over the past year.

The problem is that the messengers carrying the videos out of the jungle and handing them over to the mediators – in this case, Córdoba – are in danger of 'being thrown in jail and accused of terrorism,' the senator told the press. 'No one wants to take the risk.'

The soldiers and police hostages 'will only be released through a swap' for imprisoned insurgents, FARC commander Alfonso Cano reiterated last week in an interview with the Bogotá magazine Cambio.

But rightwing President Álvaro Uribe is staunchly opposed to a hostage-prisoner exchange, along the lines of swaps carried out under previous governments.

And even though until early this year he said he was willing to accept all of the unilateral hostage release operations offered by the FARC, after the guerrillas announced on Apr. 16 their decision to hand over corporal Pablo Emilio Moncayo to Córdoba and the CCPP, Uribe slammed the door shut.

Nor did he open it when the FARC announced on Jun. 30 that they would also release counterinsurgency soldier Josué Daniel Calvo.

Some suspect that the president's decision not to cooperate with the rebel group's offer to release Moncayo and Calvo may be linked to plans for new attempts to rescue the hostages through a military operation or by bribing the guerrillas guarding them.

There is also speculation that the government hopes to take advantage of U.S. intelligence agents and equipment to be deployed shortly in several military bases in Colombia under a recent agreement.

Whatever the case may be, the government is undermining the possibility of a swap with its own quiet strategy, consisting of promising certain legal benefits to imprisoned FARC insurgents if they renounce the armed struggle and quit the guerrillas – thus removing themselves from the list of rebels eligible for any eventual hostage-prisoner swap.

IPS found out that the government provides monthly payments of around 450 dollars to an unknown number of imprisoned guerrillas, as well as assistance in education and housing for their families.

The FARC have declared insurgents who accept the payments and assistance – which are offered discreetly by government envoys – 'military objectives.'

The result is that the leaders of the rebel group themselves do not even know how many imprisoned insurgents they want to exchange hostages for, or how many have been removed from the list – which, moreover, has never been published.

Besides kidnapping people for ransom, the FARC takes hostages – politicians and members of the police and military - with the hope of swapping them for imprisoned guerrillas.

But it no longer has civilian hostages to exchange.

Thirteen regional lawmakers were killed in an unclarified shootout between the FARC and an unidentified armed group; two managed to escape; one – former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt – was rescued in a bloodless military operation (along with 14 police and military hostages); and eight others were freed by the FARC as a result of mediation led by Córdoba (and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in six of the cases).

ASFAMIPAZ, the association that represents the families of kidnapped police officers and soldiers, which has been attending the CCPP meetings, advocates a hostage-prisoner swap based on a negotiated agreement between the government and the FARC – 'the miracle of a humanitarian accord,' as Solórzano described it in the videos.

'We have always believed that there are first- and second-class hostages in this country,' Marleny Orjuela, president of ASFAMIPAZ, told IPS. If Moncayo or Calvo were politicians, 'the president would have put his heart into this.

'Humanity, humanitarianism: that is what we have been calling for all these years: for President Uribe to really throw his support behind (efforts to secure) the release of the military and police hostages,' she added.

'The dangerous thing about these rescue operations is that people can be killed, and in this case we're talking about soldiers and police officers,' Senator Córdoba warned Tuesday. 'A great deal of care is taken when public figures of national or international renown are involved, as in the previous cases. But it would appear that in this case, because the hostages are soldiers and police, they are doomed to die.'

Hostages have been killed in previous forced rescue attempts by the military, to which the families are opposed.

Corporal Moncayo was taken prisoner by the FARC in December 1997, at the age of 18, when the rebels attacked a military telecommunications base.

His father, high school teacher or 'profesor' Gustavo Moncayo, known as 'the Peace Walker', has walked hundreds of kilometres around the country demanding the hostages' release. He has also turned to the justice system to press unsuccessfully for a hostage-prisoner swap, asked the ombudsman to review the legal decisions that have gone against him, and sought support at the international level.

'Just imagine how we feel, helpless to do anything about all of this,' Moncayo told IPS, referring to the four months of anxious waiting since the FARC announced that his son would be released.

He and his family dream that the day will come when Uribe decides to allow Córdoba to fly in to the jungle to receive their son from the guerrillas. 'In the meantime, we are waiting here with our pain, our suffering,' he said.

Moncayo has had to quit his teaching job, and travels constantly, supporting his family as he can with donations from organisations and individuals.

Over the last four months, he has spent a large part of his time in Bogotá. 'No, profesor Moncayo, of course I'm not going to charge you,' taxi drivers often tell him.

'Wherever I go, people are constantly greeting me: 'Profe, how are you?' They show me so much affection,' he said. People come out to have their pictures taken with him, and invite him to lunch, he added.

But he feels that he does not have the support he really needs, 'powerful support that would enable the release of Pablo Emilio.'

Since he began the crusade for the release of his son in mid-2007, Moncayo has worn a chain around his neck and wrists, to remember what his son and the rest of the hostages are going through.

Exhausted after a 27-hour bus ride from his home in Sandoná, in the southwestern province of Nariño, he is wearing only a cotton t-shirt in the chilly Bogotá evening. On the t-shirt are images of his son, his wife Stella and his daughter Tatiana, over the caption 'They will never forget the beauty of a morning in freedom.'

The phrase comes from 'a letter that Pablo Emilio sent us years ago, in 2000, or before,' says Moncayo, trying to remember exactly when it was. 'I liked it, and since then I've used it as a slogan.'

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service