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

COLOMBIA: ‘Peace Walker’ Welcomed by Tens of Thousands

Constanza Vieira*

BOGOTÁ, Aug 1 2007 (IPS) - Colombian teacher Gustavo Moncayo has collected more than two million signatures in favour of a swap of imprisoned guerrillas for hostages held by the leftist rebels – including his son – as he walked from southwestern Colombia to the capital, which he reached Wednesday, welcomed by millions of supporters.

On the outskirts of the capital late Tuesday, he said he would only talk to President Álvaro Uribe himself. "I have nothing to discuss with the vice president" or the interior minister, as the government had offered, he told reporters, without breaking step.

But on Wednesday morning, Uribe spoke with Moncayo by means of the Caracol Radio station and promised to meet with him Thursday.

The 55-year-old Moncayo set out from his hometown of Sandoná in the southwestern department (province) of Nariño on Jun. 17, without provisions and carrying just a small suitcase with a pair of pants, three shirts and his Andean pan pipe, of which he is a skilled player.

Moncayo, who has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and a master’s degree in history, is the father of 29-year-old army corporal Pablo Moncayo, captured by the main insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in a Dec. 21, 1997 rebel attack on a military post in Nariño.

Since then, the Moncayo family "has had no Christmases," he said.

The young soldier forms part of a group of hostages made up of members of the military, police officers and civilians, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors who were acting as advisers under the U.S.-financed counterinsurgency Plan Colombia.

FARC is holding the hostages with the aim of exchanging them for an unspecified number of imprisoned guerrillas, perhaps as many as 500.

Moncayo has walked the 800 kilometres with chains draped around his neck and his wrists, accompanied by his 19-year-old daughter Tatiana.

He and his wife Stella, who is also a teacher, have three other daughters. The youngest, three-year-old Valentina, has only seen her brother in two videos that FARC has sent over the past nine and a half years as proof of life. A bundle of letters written by Pablo has also reached the family.

In the last video, aired on Jun. 25 by the Qatar-based satellite T.V. station Al-Jazeera, Corporal Moncayo urged the rightwing Uribe to once and for all open up a channel for talks on a humanitarian prisoner-hostage exchange with the FARC.

"Why don&#39t you open up a third front for dialogue? Why resort to force?" he asked. He was referring to the government’s negotiations that led to a partial demobilisation of the far-right paramilitaries, as well as the ongoing preliminary talks with the second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Moncayo and his daughter did not see the 15-minute video until Jul. 22, when they passed through the central department of Tolima. Although they hugged each other tightly and tears welled up in their eyes while they watched the video recording, they did not break down and cry.

Pablo’s father later commented, calmly, that his son’s words were "A cry for help…His pronounced cheekbones and haunted look shows that they (Pablo and another soldier who showed up on the video) have lost their smiles."

Moncayo and Tatiana were forced to frequently stop during their journey because of health reasons, but they received free medical attention from supportive doctors and other health professionals.

The teacher plans to camp in the political heart of Colombia, the Plaza de Bolívar, the square surrounded by the presidential palace, the Congress building, the palace of justice and the city government building.

"I am going to stay here until the humanitarian accord is negotiated. And if that doesn&#39t work, I&#39ll travel around the whole world," he said.

After government officials said he would not be allowed to camp in the square, the leftist mayor of Bogotá, Luis Eduardo Garzón, gave his assurances that he would have no problem.

"Moncayo can stay at my house, in the Plaza de Bolívar, in the city government building, wherever he wants. A man who has carried out this stoic feat is not going to be challenged or oppressed," said Garzón.

But the Bogotá city government clarified that only Moncayo and his family members would be allowed to stay overnight in the square, not any of the others who have accompanied him.

Supporters who have accompanied Moncayo have coordinated his arrival in every village and town with the local authorities, and he has invariably received an extremely warm welcome from local residents.

He would arrive exhausted, meet with people, fall asleep at midnight or two in the morning, and be walking again at daybreak.

Locals showed their support for him and for a humanitarian swap by showering him with food. Many gave him chickens, but then would stick around to make sure the teacher and his daughter ate "their" chicken.

Along the way, sick people would come out to meet him, as if by catching a glimpse of him they might be healed.

Others printed and sold little cards with his image, and Tatiana protested when someone tried to charge those signing the petition in favour of a prisoner swap 10,000 pesos (more than five dollars).

Although his long march received little coverage by the press, that began to change over the last week. On Jul. 9, Moncayo complained that his statements were systematically cut short by the media.

Today, the press estimates that some three million Colombians have come out to support the man who is "walking for peace and freedom," as he has been dubbed. The column of people behind Moncayo was more than 10 kilometres long, according to reporters.

But the spokeswoman for a human rights group, Madres de La Candelaria, which won the national peace prize in 2006, said police were harassing people accompanying Moncayo along the streets of the capital.

Madres de La Candelaria (Mothers of La Candelaria) is a group of women from the northwestern department of Antioquia who are relatives of victims of both the paramilitaries and the guerrillas. The organisation’s spokeswoman, Teresita Gaviria, came from Medellín, the capital of Antioquia, to accompany Moncayo on the last leg of his journey.

In Soacha, 27 km south of the Plaza de Bolívar, Moncayo and his daughter were met Tuesday night by a packed city square full of waving Colombian and white flags and signs calling for a humanitarian exchange, in the same place where Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated by the mafia in 1989.

José Figuereido, the Soacha municipal official in charge of human rights questions, told IPS that Tatiana Moncayo had "emphatically specified that no politician be present" in the welcome ceremony.

"We hope that this touches everyone ‘s heart, even the president’s," he added.

On Jul. 4, Moncayo suggested the creation of a permanent panel on talks towards a humanitarian accord.

He said his biggest obstacle was not the Andes mountains, and referred to "the biggest peak: Uribe-FARC."

Uribe has refused to demilitarise an area in order to facilitate talks on an exchange, as the FARC demands, and insists that any imprisoned guerrillas who are released as part of a swap must agree to desert the insurgent army.

The FARC, meanwhile, is no longer demanding that the security forces be withdrawn from two entire departments in the south, and instead is asking for the demilitarisation of just two municipalities in the western department of Valle del Cauca, which cover a total of 760 square kilometres. But the group refuses to budge from that demand.

Uribe has not retracted his orders to the military to rescue the hostages by force, to which their families are staunchly opposed.

In failed rescue attempts, 13 hostages have already been killed, including 11 members of the security forces, a sitting governor and a former cabinet minister. Only one former cabinet minister, Fernando Araújo, was able to escape seven months ago when soldiers raided the FARC camp where he was being held. He has since been named foreign minister.

The day after Moncayo set out on his trek, 11 former regional legislators from Valle del Cauca, who had spent five years as FARC hostages, died in circumstances that have yet to be clarified by an international humanitarian commission. They were possibly killed by their captors in the midst of a rescue attempt that the government denies carrying out.

The FARC has not yet handed over their remains of the hostages to their families.

*With additional reporting by Helda Martínez from Soacha.