Plan Colombia and Beyond

Here is a translation of Semana magazine’s excerpts from the lengthy press conference that former Meta department Governor Alan Jara gave yesterday afternoon, shortly after being released from 7 1/2 years as a captive of the FARC guerrillas.

Greeting to his comrades in captivity

“I spent seven years and seven months kidnapped. It was for 394 long weeks that I was in Colombia’s jungles. I want to greet those who shared these 2,760 days (or rather, nights) of jungle captivity with me: Luis Mendieta (police colonel), the husband of María Teresa, the father of Jeny and José Luis. Captain Murillo, Murillo the champion, as we called him, the fencing champion. A greeting to Donato, the son of Tiberio, who I think just turned 84 years old. To Pablo Emilio Moncayo, to Carlos José Duarte, to Arbey Delgado, the army sergeant. To José Libardo Forero, to Jorge Romero, from Pasto. To Jorge Trujillo, from Gamarra. To César Lasso, from Cali. To Salcedo, to Lucho Beltrán, to Luis Alfredo Moreno, another young man from Nariño. With these men I had the honor of sharing my time. To Elkin Hernández, Edgar Yesid, Álvaro Moreno, to Herazo Maya. To Captain Guillermo Solórzano, a police officer.”

The day of his kidnapping

“On July 15, 2001, I was invited with the United Nations to go to Lejanías, where they were going to serve the community with a bridge built with resources from the mayor’s office’s budget. When I asked about the security issue, they told me that there would be no problem, but that there were no security forces. It was a municipality bordering the demilitarized zone [from which the government of President Andrés Pastrana had pulled out troops to meet a FARC pre-condition for peace talks]. I had asked President Andrés Pastrana, in writing and orally, to ensure that there was security in the municipalities around the demilitarized zone. But this request was not attended. The guerrillas patrolled there. I came to a roadblock. They asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ I responded, ‘to inaugurate the bridge.’ ‘Go ahead,’ they told me. On the way back, the same roadblock stopped us. They required my presence. I got out of the car and they said they needed to talk to me. I had no other alternative. It was then that they took me away. I went through Mesetas, La Uribe, La Julia, La Macarena and arrived in the Caguán. There, Jorge Briceño (alias ‘El Mono Jojoy’) interviewed me. He made a series of declarations, recriminations, clarifications and the last sentence was ‘You didn’t know that I’d said I was going to grab legislators to be exchanged [for FARC prisoners in Colombian jails]?’ I said to him: ‘I’m not a legislator.’ ‘But you were going to be one,’ he answered.”

President Álvaro Uribe

“I think that the President’s [Álvaro Uribe's] attitude hasn’t at all helped the exchange and the liberation to happen. It would seem that President Uribe benefits from the situation of war that the country is living through, and it seems like the FARC likes to have him in power. In one direction or the other, they aim the same way.

Everything I’ve heard is about the strength and success of the Democratic Security Policy. And if it is so strong, could it be that a humanitarian accord would set it wobbling?  … When one is in the jungle tied to a pole, and you hear that there are “immovables,” for me the immovable is that pole, not the conditions.”

The FARC

“I’m going to tell another story to illustrate the reach that the FARC have today. One day we arrived in an area where, apparently, there was nothing. There, they were cooking with firewood. I said to the comandante: ‘This wood is making a lot of smoke, we can’t keep cooking without a gasoline stove.’ The next day, the stove was there. They started to cook,  but the stove used up a lot of gasoline and the beans they were cooking wouldn’t soften. ‘Why don’t you get a pressure cooker?’ I asked jokingly. And the next day the pressure cooker was there. So, with that demonstration of how they operate, we arrived at a stream at about 11 or 12:00 at night. After walking I don’t know where, it is impossible to say, there was a boat waiting for us. After half an hour, another boat launched, picked us up and we arrived at a site where, with lanterns, from the bank, they signaled that we had to get off at that point.”

Life in the jungle

“After being kidnapped for two days, they gave us a snack. It was Royal water and soda crackers. I put down the cup and put the soda crackers on top. I went out to “take care of business,” and when I came back, the crackers were folded over from the humidity. If that’s what it does to some crackers, imagine what it does to the people there. It kills and rots everything. That’s why the humanitarian exchange is urgent.

… And as Chavo del Ocho says, one thing is one thing and another thing is another thing. One thing is the decision to keep us in the jungle for so much time, and another thing is the treatment we received every day. They give us what is within reach. There is no mistreatment, nor rudeness, nor humiliations. They just give us what there is. Most of the time, a rich diet. Rich in flour. Rice and peas. Beans and rice. In the afternoon they’d vary it with rice and pasta, rice and lentils. One can know what the date is depending on whether it is rice or pasta. When conditions allowed, animals were hunted. Big tigers [jaguars and similar big cats]. Like the saying goes, I even ate monkey. I ate rays, armadillos, deer, fish. Breakfast was a soup of everything: beans, rice and lentils.”

The danger of death

“I spent seven weeks walking, before being free. I counted that every 4,000 paces, they stopped. I spent 17 days counting from one to 4,000. I calculated 150 kilometers, without counting what we did in a boat. Around us, like planets orbiting, were many guerrillas of the vanguard and rearguard, who served as protection. On occasion they came close to us or we retreated. On one occasion when they came close, about 50 meters I think, the group that was in front encountered an Army patrol. We, who were a bit behind, heard the shots. They held me down on the ground, the shots continued. And so I didn’t know which bullets to protect myself from, those of the Army or those of the guerrillas. It was very tense, we stayed on the ground all afternoon until it got dark. Once it was night, we moved a bit backward. We had to walk in silence. I remembered Alan Felipe [his son] when he was 4 years old. One day he said to me, “Papi, I hate you,” and I thought that the world was backward. And that’s how it was that night, like the world backward: the guerrillas protecting me and the Army shooting. … In the past, on four occasions bombs and planes passed very close by. The guerrillas ran to get us out, to protect us.”

Torture

“The chains were used as a security method. They didn’t mean to put chains on us to torture us. When we were penned up, there were no chains. When we went out to walk there were chains. That was a sad, painful circumstance. Even the guerrillas, when they put them on us, their faces grimaced. I prefer to remember them in the morning, when they took them off of us. They put my chain on my left leg, but the rest around their necks. A regrettable fact, for example: two of them, due to the guerrillas’ own error in positioning the chains, had them a bit loose. The punishment was never to allow them to be taken off, and as a result for the past two years, they are chained together at the neck. If you go, I have to go. If one goes to the bathroom, the other also has to do it. From here, I ask the guerrilla comandantes to stop using the chains as a punishment.

Walking in the jungle, it’s so hard with the chains, professor Moncayo! [The father of one of the remaining police hostages, Gustavo Moncayo, raises awareness about his son's plight by wearing a chain of his own.]  With a chain around your neck, you go stuck together, if one falls so does the other. An anecdote: One day we had to cross a wide river. We hung from a rope from one side to another. It was 340 meters. It was a very turbulent river. On the bank was Martín Sombra, directing the operation. To the pair ahead of me, Sombra asked, ‘Do you know how to swim?’ ‘Yes,’ they answered. ‘Oh good, be careful,’ Sombra said. After that, he asked the next one, ‘Do you know how to swim,’ the other answered ‘no.’ ‘Oh good, be careful,’ said Sombra.”

The road to freedom

“I was sick, I had the early stages of malaria, high fever. On December 18, the subcomandante of the group that had us came up to us. He told us that we had two minutes to pack. I was lying on a sheet of plastic, in very bad shape. Every one of my compañeros, Mendieta, Murillo, Delgado, Donato, began to pack up what was theirs. I gathered my things as I could. The comandante called me over. He said to me, ‘You come here, you’re already read.’ He called me urgently to leave the delimited area. He said ‘Walk.’ At that moment, I saw my compañeros for the last time. Colonel Mendieta said ‘Thank you Alan’ and began to applaud. The other compañeros joined him: William, Enrique and Arbey. They all thanked me. I had a 40-degree [104 degrees Fahrenheit] fever, and I didn’t understand anything. They yelled, ‘Thank you Alan, long live Alan!’ The guerrillas tried to shut them up. I didn’t understand what was happening.  I went to where the chief of the encampment was. I didn’t know where I was going. … Regrettably I didn’t bring proofs of life, everything happened in a rush.

… When one turns on the radio in the jungle at midnight, one closes one’s eyes and is transported, it is an astral journey, when one imagines one’s family is there.  I imagine them sitting on a green couch that was mine, or in bed. One sees them thanks to the magic of the radio. To recover the lost time, never! They stole that time from us. The pain of not seeing [my son] grow up, or even to hear him, is nothing compared to his pain in not seeing me.”

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