Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Just the Mother of a U.S. Spy

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Aug 25 2004 (IPS) - “What? The Colombian government doesn’t recognise that there’s a war going on here? But people are killed here every day!” Jo Rosano, the mother of Marc Goncalves, a U.S. intelligence agent kidnapped on Feb. 13, 2003 by the leftist guerrillas, said in the capital.

Rosano could not understand why it is so difficult for the government of right-wing President Alvaro Uribe to reach an agreement for a humanitarian swap of imprisoned guerrillas for hostages held by the rebels, despite parliamentarian Wilson Borja’s attempt to explain the political situation to her.

The problem in reaching an agreement is that “the Colombian state has never admitted that the country is in the grip of a civil war, and especially not this government, which argues that there are no ‘guerrillas’, only ‘terrorists’. Accepting a swap is a political problem,” Borja argued.

The conversation between the leftist lawmaker and Rosano on the possibility of a humanitarian exchange was witnessed by IPS when Rosano recently took part in one of the weekly public gatherings of Asfamipaz, a group of family members of 20 police officers and 14 soldiers held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the main rebel group.

In an apparent about-face, the government announced on Aug. 18 that it was willing to release 50 insurgents “indicted or convicted” only for “rebellion” in exchange for “individuals kidnapped for political motives and members of the public forces held by FARC”.

But FARC responded last Sunday that the government’s proposal is not realistic and cannot be taken seriously.

Felipe Torres, a member of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), the second-largest insurgent group, who served a 10-year prison term, told IPS that “there is not a single guerrilla fighter in prison only on charges of rebellion.”

Guerrillas who are captured are also typically accused of other crimes like kidnapping and murder, which means they would not be eligible for a swap under the conditions set by the government. Those convicted only on charges of rebellion are often trade unionists, say human rights activists.

Jurist Agustín Jiménez, head of the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), which was founded in 1973 by Colombian Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez, commented to IPS that “we have long complained that there are many innocent people in prison who have served sentences accused of rebellion even though they do not belong to an insurgent group.”

He said the government’s proposal could become “a barrier to reaching a humanitarian agreement” for an exchange.

Some of the hostages, who the guerrillas want to swap for between 300 and 400 imprisoned rebels, have been held by the insurgents for up to seven years. FARC is also offering around 24 politician hostages for release in a possible exchange.

The peculiar conversation between Borja, who has survived an attempt on his life, and Rosano, whose son and two other colleagues were captured by the insurgents while carrying out an intelligence mission as part of Washington’s military assistance to Bogota, took place in the downtown Bolívar square in the capital.

For many in the Colombian left, the three U.S. hostages are written off as merely “CIA agents” (a reference to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency). But for Rosano, “Marc is a good person. I’m not saying that because he’s my son. I say it because it’s true,” she told IPS.

Borja told Rosano that “We are aware that those who are principally responsible are the armed actors who do the kidnapping,” including FARC, the ELN and the right-wing paramilitary militias, which according to the United Nations support the armed forces.

“But the Colombian state is responsible for failing to come up with solutions with respect to the kidnap victims,” he added.

FARC considers “hostages” only those it is holding for political purposes – the police, soldiers and politicians that it wants to swap. The other kidnapping victims it has taken (who total 800, according to government figures) are being held only for ransom and are not eligible for release under a potential exchange.

Rosano asked Borja why “those people” (the guerrillas) are in the jungle, and he explained, through an interpreter, that it was due to “social causes that remain unsolved, while on the contrary the war continues to deepen.”

The country’s leaders “have always used the army, which is the people itself, to serve their interests,” said Borja. “That’s why they don’t care about the people who are killed, ‘disappeared’ or kidnapped.”

Rosano wondered out loud whether the United States shouldn’t “donate that money to help all of those poor people, the hundreds of thousands of displaced, instead of giving the money for killing.”

But, she said, “the U.S. excuse is the war against drug trafficking.”

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt, having received 3.15 billion dollars since 2000.

That year, the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) launched Plan Colombia, a U.S.-financed anti-drug and counterinsurgency strategy.

Plan Patriot, a vast Colombian military offensive aimed at penetrating territory under FARC control that is being carried out in relative secrecy with U.S. support and military advice, is seen by its critics as the military phase of Plan Colombia, which the United States helped design.

Rosano added that “If those funds had been given to the small farmers, they could have sat back for the past three years doing nothing, living off of that money,” instead of planting coca, the raw material used to produce cocaine, of which Colombia is the world’s biggest producer.

And if the funds were used “for development, like building roads for farmers to bring their products to market, that wouldn’t just help the country, but would also help combat the problem of illegal drug crops,” she added.

This is Rosano’s first visit to this South American country of 44 million that has been in the grip of an armed conflict for 40 years.

She said she has written many letters to Uribe, but has never received a response. “It would be great if he told me, ‘Yes I’ll meet with you’,” she said.

Borja promised to gather signatures from his fellow parliamentarians to send a petition to Uribe asking him to meet with Rosano, “although he doesn’t answer my letters either, and doesn’t even read them,” he added.

“I want to bring my son and his colleagues some hope, courage and strength,” Rosano remarked to IPS. “I also want to draw the attention of the media, because this should be a global, and not just a Colombian or U.S., concern. And I want to pressure (U.S. President George W.) Bush to do something” to secure the release of the hostages.

“I’m going to keep on saying this because they are living like animals, and that’s not fair. It’s not fair for their lives to come to an end this way…The day I heard my son had been captured, my life ended,” she added.

“After it happened, they (the U.S. government) didn’t even call to give me the news. They didn’t give me any information. I had to find out myself that it had happened.”

“They don’t tell me anything. Remember, I’m ‘just’ the mother. As far as they’re concerned, I’m nobody. But he’s my son, he’s my heart,” she said.

The Tuesday meetings in Bolívar square, which is surrounded by the seat of government, parliament and the court administration building, are also usually attended by the family of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped by the guerrillas in February 2002.

The latest Tuesday meetings have been more tense than usual, since FARC warned Uribe on Aug. 16 that because of Plan Patriot, “the lives of the hostages are in serious danger.”

“Our units have orders to counter any military attack,” FARC told the TV news programme Noticias Uno.

Betancourt’s husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, told IPS that he interpreted the statement as an announcement that the hostages would be used as “human shields”.

In May 2003, FARC shot hostages in cold blood when the “mobile jail” where they were held was surrounded by the army in a failed rescue attempt.

Guillermo Gaviria, governor of the northwestern department (province) of Antioquia, his peace adviser and former defence minister Gilberto Echeverry, and eight soldiers, all of whom had been held for over a year, were killed. The guerrillas escaped.

Asfamipaz and the families of the rest of the hostages and kidnap victims have repeatedly expressed their opposition to any military rescue attempt.

The Pastrana administration reached humanitarian accords with FARC and the ELN that led to the release of 81 police and soldiers, three intelligence agents and 200 civilian hostages held by the guerrillas. In exchange, the government released 14 FARC insurgents from prison.

FARC also freed, unilaterally, 70 soldiers in 1997 and 350 in 2001.

The 50 guerrillas who could be released in a humanitarian swap, if FARC accepts the government’s proposal, would be sent into exile in Switzerland and France or would have to join a government programme aimed at the reinsertion of guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries into society.

Until it announced its proposal this month, the government was demanding a unilateral ceasefire by the insurgents and an end to ransom kidnappings as a requisite for discussing any possible humanitarian exchange.