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 Editorials | Issues | December 2007 
Colombia: No Immediate End to Kidnap Victims’ Pain
 Helda Martínez - IPS
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| | The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are thought to have kidnapped 6,778 people. |
Bogotá - While the eyes of the world are on the imminent release of three hostages held by Colombia’s FARC guerrillas, hundreds of other kidnapping victims in this South American country are living their own personal nightmares, but outside the glare of the spotlight.
"A kidnapping doesn’t end with the release. Victims who have been freed or rescued say recovery is a long and painful process, and may be as difficult as the time spent in captivity," clinical psychologist Dary Nieto of the non-governmental Fundación País Libre told IPS.
"Therefore society has an obligation to respect the privacy and dignity of freed kidnap victims, and the media play a fundamental part in this," she added.
For political purposes or for ransom, 22,256 people have been kidnapped in Colombia over the last decade, according to official statistics.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are thought to have kidnapped 6,778 people; over the same period, 5,138 kidnappings occurred for which the captors are unknown.
The second-largest leftwing rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was apparently responsible for 5,387 cases, while 3,790 are attributed to common criminals, and 1,163 to far-right paramilitaries.
"If we consider their relatives and friends, the figure is multiplied considerably, to the point where it is not an exaggeration to say that the majority of Colombians have been affected by kidnappings, one way or another," Nieto added.
Nevertheless, she said, social indifference is one reason why kidnapping has continued, augmented by the absence of state authority and the impunity that prevails in this country still in the grip of a nearly five-decade civil war.
"A level of 92 percent impunity sends a clear message: commit a crime and you won’t be punished," said Olga Lucía Gómez, the head of País Libre.
In her view, "problems like social exclusion and the lack of job opportunities contribute, by facilitating the organisation of criminal gangs who find kidnapping a ready source of income," while other groups are more interested in power and domination.
"In any event, one feels great pain for this country. In the case of political kidnappings, the soldiers of Cerro Patascoy (in the southern department of Nariño) have been held captive for 10 years without any progress towards a social and political strategy to achieve their release," Nieto said.
The FARC are holding some 45 hostages, including politicians, soldiers and police officers, as well as three U.S. military contractors, who they want to trade for around 500 imprisoned insurgents.
This month the rebels announced that they would unilaterally release several hostages -- two women politicians, Consuelo González and Clara Rojas, as well as the latter’s young son Emmanuel, who was born in the jungle as the result of a relationship with a guerrilla fighter -- and are expected to do so this weekend.
Nieto’s first involvement in kidnapping issues was through the presidential programme for the defence of personal liberty initiated by President Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) at a time when kidnapping was on the rise.
According to historian Juan Romero, precedents for kidnapping in Colombia go back to the Spanish conquest, when Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada kidnapped the Zaque (Sun-King of the Muisca people) Quemuenchatocha in 1537, to demand a ransom of gold and emeralds from his subjects.
In the 1970s, the insurgent April 19 Movement (M-19), now a legal political party, carried out high-profile urban kidnappings. And in the early 1980s, "extraditable" offenders, mainly drug mafia bosses, started a wave of kidnappings to pressure the government to cancel extradition to the United States.
In 1996 there were 1,038 documented cases, while in 1998 the number climbed to 2,860, for both political purposes and ransom.
"It was a time when entire municipalities were taken over by outlawed groups, and negotiations between kidnappers and relatives of victims were even held in public places. Everyone knew what was going on, but people were impotent against the kidnappers, largely because of the absence of the state," Nieto said.
The kidnappings peaked during the government of President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002). In 1999 there were 3,205 cases, and the highest number was reached in 2000, with 3,572 kidnappings.
According to the Defence Ministry, 1,073 kidnappings could not be attributed to a particular group in 2000, while 916 were blamed on the ELN, 849 on the FARC, 314 on common criminals, 190 on paramilitaries, and 230 on other groups.
The government and the FARC were holding peace talks in a demilitarized zone centred on the town of San Vicente del Caguán, in the southeastern department (province) of Meta, but days after the talks broke down in 2002, the FARC seized then presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and her running-mate Clara Rojas.
"At that moment, in spite of the criticism, Pastrana recognised the armed rebels as interlocutors, and accorded them a political status that contributed to curbing the kidnappings," Nieto said.
"But there was also a remarkable general indifference towards kidnappings. Many were not reported by the press, and when they were, no one took any notice. This attitude helped it become a commonplace, everyday practice," she said.
People reckoned that if they did not belong to powerful economic or social élites, and did not live or travel in remote regions of the country, they were not in any personal danger.
"We’re an individualistic society with a low sense of commitment to others. In the best of cases we look out for our own nuclear family. Yet the statistics show that the middle classes are frequent victims," she said. "We believe that bad things happen to those who make mistakes, and therefore that it’s their fault."
The statistics indicate a gradual fall in the number of kidnappings since 2002. In March 2003 the government of Álvaro Uribe announced a public policy against kidnapping and extortion. In 2006 the official figure for kidnappings was 687.
In Nieto’s view as a psychologist, kidnapping is a crime with consequences that depend on the victim’s specific experiences, the time he or she has spent in captivity, and how he or she has been treated.
"A kidnap victim faces constant intimidation and subjugation, the loss of willpower and freedom, the loss of their life project and the ability to make their own decisions, and this has an undeniable effect on the person," she said.
The differences depend on the nature of the kidnapping. In the case of political hostages, they suffer from a sense of complete impotence because their fate depends on agreements negotiated by others.
The families of political hostages take every possible action to obtain a humanitarian accord for their release.
For example, Gustavo Moncayo, a geography teacher dubbed the "peace walker", hiked 1,000 kilometres to Bogotá to talk to President Uribe, sleep on the paving stones in central Bolívar Square, raise funds to visit Europe, return to Colombia and carry on walking to Venezuela.
His aim is to promote a humanitarian agreement, and in so doing secure the release of the political hostages, including his son Pablo, now 29, who was captured 10 years ago in Cerro Patascoy. Pablo Moncayo and Libio Martínez are the FARC’s longest-held hostages.
Kidnap victims held for ransom also face difficult situations, as the sums of money demanded for their safe return are usually beyond their families’ means, but in general they are held for shorter periods of time, experts say.
All of them are victims. "These are complex situations that we have to examine in detail so as not to confuse them. It’s not about good guys and bad guys, but as a society we are all implicated and we all bear a fraction of the responsibility," said Nieto.
"There is no room here for morbid curiosity, or the speculations that have arisen over Clara Rojas and her son Emmanuel. People’s dignity and private lives must be respected if we want a better country."
"The little boy will also go through a grieving process, he will experience loss, he will miss his environment, and eventually he will adapt to his new family, surrounded by love and truth. We called for his release, and the least we can offer him is a normal life."
"The media must handle this intelligently, and avoid raising sensational expectations that may create more frustrations," Nieto concluded. |
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