COLOMBIA: Ex-Hostage Says FARC Killed 11 Captives
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ (IPS) - "Why did they kill them? Out of physical
cowardice. It's what we call murder. Sheer physical cowardice. It's
what we call a war crime," said former lawmaker Sigifredo López,
just freed by the FARC, about the massacre of his 11 colleagues on
Jun. 18, 2007, when they were hostages of the Colombian guerrillas.
"It takes more courage not to murder a defenceless citizen," he
added.
Kidnapped together with the 11 other regional lawmakers in April
2002, López remained in the hands of the rebels until Thursday, when
he was unilaterally freed by the insurgents.
"Some idiots from the 29th (Front) turned up without telling us
beforehand," one of the three guerrillas he used to talk with during
his captivity told López.
"There are some things I can't mention, because if I give certain
details, they will know who it was," and that person will be shot,
López said at a press conference in Cali, the capital of the western
province of Valle del Cauca.
According to his version, the people responsible for the deaths of
the 11 regional legislators were six members of the 29th Front of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which operates in
the jungle of southwestern Colombia.
Upon the unexpected arrival of this group of guerrillas at the camp
where the hostages were held by rebels belonging to the 60th Front,
the guards carried out their standing orders from the high command
of the FARC, which were to execute the hostages in the case of any
attack or rescue attempt by the army.
At 11.30 on that sunny morning (16.30 GMT), two shots were fired,
"from outside, coming toward" the camp, López said.
He assumed the guerrillas were shooting ducks, but another two shots
followed almost immediately, so he threw himself flat on the ground.
Three minutes later, there were bursts of machinegun fire and he
heard yells, "like fighters in combat".
"Don't let them go, don't let them go!" López heard the guerrilla
commander of the unit in charge of the hostages shout, through the
machinegun fire.
"Someone said 'the vultures are here,' and the commander said 'kill
them and let's go,'" the rebel who talked to López told him.
López was chained to a tree, 50 metres away from the rest of the
hostages, behind a screen made of canes, as "punishment" for being
"rude" and "insubordinate", so he did not hear the order from the
rebel commander, nor did he see his colleagues being killed.
His personal guard was at a nearby creek, washing the lunch dishes.
When the other guerrillas left, the guard remembered López and came
back for him 10 minutes later.
When López and his guard passed by the place where the other
hostages had been, there was no one there.
"Have they taken them away already?" he asked. "Yes, they've taken
them away," his guard replied. Later on, he realised that his
question had been ambiguous, and the answer could imply that his
colleagues had been taken away alive and well.
López heard what had happened to them 10 days later, at four in the
morning, when the widow of one of the dead politicians said on the
radio that, according to the FARC's Joint Western Command, the 11
lawmakers had died in the crossfire when an unidentified military
group attacked the camp where they were located.
Reeling from the news, he asked a rebel to find out from the unit
commander whether it was true. The guerrilla came back the same
morning and told him bluntly: "They send word that everything you
have heard is true."
The death of those 11 people was not a consequence of an attempted
military rescue by the government, López said.
His conclusion is consistent with the government's version.
If it had been a military rescue, he would have heard helicopters,
he reasoned. And the guerrillas would not have been there, "because
as soon as they see a soldier they run for it." "There was no
fighting there, and there were no helicopters," he repeated.
"They were murdered by the FARC," he accused, a movement of armed
peasants "that is insurgent and terrorist at the same time," and
whose fighters join its ranks "to be able to eat" because the state
"hasn't given them any other options".
"Why did they kill them? Because of something called paranoia," in
López's view, which was again consistent with the government's
interpretation.
Thus the sole survivor, López, contradicted an account of the events
published by this IPS correspondent in August 2007, which was based
on a civilian source connected to the FARC's supply network.
"The word I used most in the four to six months after my colleagues
were killed was not 'God,' but 's.o.b.'s and murderers,'" he said.
"I was eaten up by hatred. I saw them and I couldn't stand them. I
asked them not to talk to me beyond what was absolutely necessary,
not to say hello to me," he said, describing his relationship with
the guerrillas immediately after the massacre. "I wept all day,
those first days," he said, and he lost his appetite.
Eventually he decided he could not continue mired in depression and
hatred. He had stopped writing, but he began an essay on the
conflict in Colombia, which included the ideas of his murdered
companions.
The FARC did not let him bring this essay with him on his release.
López was the sixth hostage to be unilaterally freed as a goodwill
gesture this week by the FARC, who are still holding 22 military and
police officers, some of whom have been in captivity for over 10
years, with the goal of exchanging them for an undetermined number
of guerrillas imprisoned by the government.
These releases were negotiated by the civilian organisation
Colombians for Peace, led by opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba.
"The terrible killing of my colleagues," said López, "leaves a mark
on the soul that Colombians will never be able to forget," and he
called for further mass demonstrations to protest against
kidnappings.
"I will only forgive the FARC the day that 'Grillo,' the commander
of the 60th Front who gave the order to murder my companions, gives
a press conference (for their families) and says: 'Forgive me, it
was a mistake made during the war,' looking their children in the
eye," he said.
And he told the children of the deceased lawmakers who were present
at the press conference that their fathers "were honourable men who
died with the very highest human dignity."
"In the jungle, all that one has is one's dignity. Even life ceases
to matter. The great battle we all waged was simply to be treated
with respect, to be spoken to properly, instead of being called
'sons of bitches,'" he said.
"But among the guerrillas, as everywhere else, there are uncouth
louts, and others who treat you with respect," he qualified.
López declared his support for a negotiated solution to the war,
saying that in spite of everything, "We can't carry on sending
messages of hate."
He proposed an immediate exchange of prisoners, brokered by Senator
Córdoba and Catholic bishop Luis Augusto Castro, head of the
Colombian Episcopal Conference.
To that end, the guerrillas should give up their demand for a
demilitarised zone for negotiations, and the government should study
the legal situation of imprisoned guerrillas who want to return to
the ranks of the FARC, he said. Anything less is a "yes, but no," he
said about Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's repeated refusal to
free guerrillas who would not give up the armed struggle.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos announced a new
all-out offensive against the FARC. |
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