Oxígeno Verde’s aim was to establish dialogue simultaneously with everyone involved in the conflict, while maintaining strong military pressure to ensure that the illegal factions had an incentive to sit at the negotiating table. To better convey our message at the press conference, I had sat in the middle of a long table between life-size cardboard cutouts of Manuel Marulanda, the supreme leader of the FARC (which was now the oldest communist guerrilla group in South America); Carlos Castaño, his fiercest adversary, the head of the paramilitaries; and the generals of the Colombian army that fought both.
A few weeks earlier, on February 14, a televised meeting had taken place at San Vicente del Caguán between all the presidential candidates and members of the FARC secretariat. That meeting had been organized by the outgoing government, and we’d been allowed to use the presidential plane for the round-trip. The government was seeking support for its peace process with the FARC. It had been the object of increasingly harsh criticism for handing over to the FARC the control of a demilitarized zone of sixteen thousand square miles, more or less the size of Switzerland, in exchange for a guarantee that they would turn up at the negotiating table. San Vicente del Caguán was located at the heart of this zone.
We had gathered around a table, members of the FARC on one side and the candidates and government officials on the other. The meeting turned into an indictment of the guerrilla movement, which was accused of stalling the negotiations.
When it was my turn to take the floor, I asked the FARC representatives to prove they were serious about peace. The country had just witnessed with horror the death of Andres Felipe Pérez, a twelve-year-old boy in the final stages of terminal cancer, who had begged the FARC to allow him to talk to his father through a radio link-up before he died. His father, a soldier in the Colombian army, had been held hostage by the FARC for several years. The FARC had refused. I expressed the bitterness we all felt over this and our utter dismay at the lack of humanity from a group that claimed to be defending human rights. I concluded my speech with a declaration that peace in Colombia had to begin with the release of all the hostages—more than a thousand—being held by the FARC.
The following week, the FARC hijacked an airliner in the south and captured the region’s most important senator, Jorge Eduardo Gechem. President Pastrana abruptly ended the peace process. In a televised address, he announced that within forty-eight hours the Colombian army would regain control of the demilitarized zone and evict the FARC.
In the ensuing hours, the government announced that the FARC had left the San Vicente region and that everything had returned to normal. As proof, the press reported that President Pastrana would travel to San Vicente the following day, precisely when we had planned to go.
The telephones at our headquarters were ringing off the hook. If the president was going to San Vicente, then surely we would be going, too! My campaign made contact with the president’s office to ask if we could fly with the president’s retinue, but the request was refused. After many long hours of discussion, it appeared that we could fly to Florencia—a city 230 miles south of Bogotá—and complete the rest of the journey by car. San Vicente’s airport was under military control and closed to civilian flights. The security services confirmed we would have a solid escort: Two armored cars would meet us when we disembarked from the aircraft, and motorcycles would be at the head and rear of the convoy.
I spoke on the telephone with the mayor of San Vicente. He, too, was very insistent that I come. Military helicopters had been flying over the village all night long, and the population was afraid. People feared reprisals, as much from the paramilitaries as from the guerrillas, since the village of San Vicente had supported the peace process.
The mayor was counting on the media exposure I would get as a presidential candidate to highlight the risks being run by his people. My presence would help shield them from violence. In a final effort to convince me, he said that the bishop of San Vicente had taken the road that morning and reached his destination without a problem. The trip was not dangerous.
So I agreed to go to San Vicente, provided that security measures on the ground be confirmed before our departure, scheduled for five o’clock the following morning.
That night, when I left our HQ, I was exhausted. But my evening was only just beginning. I had a meeting with friends of the Colombian left who were seriously committed to a peace settlement. In the face of the renewed hostilities, our goal was to draft a joint strategy. I left the meeting to attend a dinner at the home of a campaign worker who had gathered together the hard-core members of the group. We all felt the need to be together, to discuss the recent turn of events.
Midway through the evening, I received a call from one of the newcomers to my campaign, Clara. She was on the team to replace the administrator who had recently left. She wanted to join us on the trip to San Vicente. I told her that she didn’t need to, there was plenty to be done during the days ahead, and I repeated to her a number of times that she could better spend the weekend preparing for what was coming up. She insisted. As a new member of the campaign, she wanted to become more involved and get to know our San Vicente team. She was adamant. So we agreed that I would pick her up in the car at dawn.
I left the meeting at ten. I was desperate to be in Papa’s arms again. He would not have eaten because he was waiting for me, and I wanted to put him to bed before going home. Ever since he left the hospital, I’d made it a rule to end my working day by dropping in to give him a kiss. It was always a relief to share all the latest minor crises with him. He looked at the world from above. Where I saw threatening waves, he saw tranquil water.
I always arrived with chilled cheeks and frozen hands. He would lift his oxygen mask and pretend to be disagreeably surprised. “Ha! You’re like a toad,” he would say, as if he were angry with me for bringing in the cold with my hugs. It was all a game, and then he would laugh and shower me with kisses.
Yet when I arrived that particular evening, the face behind the oxygen mask was serious. He asked me to sit down on the arm of the chair, and I complied, intrigued. Then he said, “Your mother is very worried about your trip tomorrow.”
“Mom worries about everything,” I replied, feeling unconcerned. Then, after thinking about it a little longer, I added, “What about you? Are you worried?”
“No, not really.”
“You know, if you don’t want me to go, I will cancel.”
He said nothing.
“Papa, it doesn’t matter if I don’t go. Besides, I don’t really want to go. I would much rather stay with you.”
The overriding priority in my life at that point was my father. The day he had been discharged from the hospital, his physician took my sister and me aside and led us into a small room full of computers to show us a beating heart on one of the monitors. He pointed to an erratic-looking line on the screen. “That’s the vein that is keeping your father alive. It is going to stop working. When? Only God knows. It could be tomorrow, the day after, in two months, or in two years. You need to be prepared.”
“Papa, tell me that you want me to stay and I’ll stay.”
“No, my darling, do what you have to do. You gave your word. The people of San Vicente are expecting you. You have to go.”
I was holding his hand, as always. We looked into each other’s eyes in silence. Papa always based his decisions on principles. I had frequently rebelled against this; as a child I found it strict and stupid. Then, as it came time for me to make my own decisions, I understood that when I was in doubt, his course was always the best one. I had devised my own motto from his example, and it had stood me in good stead. That evening I, too, saw that the trip to San Vicente was a matter of principle.
Suddenly, in a kind of irrational outburst, I heard myself say to him, “Papa, wait for me! If anything should happen to me, you wait for me! You are not going to die!”
Still shaken, his eyes widened in surprise, he replied, “Of course I will wait. I am not go
ing to die.” I immediately regretted letting myself go like that.
Then his face relaxed, and he took a deep breath and added, “Yes, I will wait for you, my darling. God willing.”
And he turned toward the picture of Christ that had pride of place in his room. His expression was so intense that I, too, turned toward it. I had never really looked at that picture before, even though it had been there for as long as I could remember. In fact, viewed with my adult eyes, it looked very kitschy. Yet it was Christ resurrected, full of brightness, his arms open and his heart vibrant. Papa made me stand in front of him, beneath the saintly picture.
“My good Jesus,” he said, “take care of this child for me.”
Mi buen Jesús, cuídame esta niña.
He patted my hand to indicate that it was me he was talking about, as if his request might have been misconstrued.
I was startled, just as he had been a few minutes earlier. His words seemed strange. Why did he say “this child” and not “my child”? But why even give it a second thought? It was of no importance whatsoever. Papa often came out with old-fashioned expressions. He was born before the streetcar, in the era of horse-drawn carriages and candles. I remained motionless, scrutinizing the expression on his face.
“Cuídame esta niña.” He repeated it, and it permeated my entire being, as if water had been poured over my head.
I knelt before him, hugging his legs, my cheek pressed against them.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Everything will be fine.”
It was more for my own reassurance that I uttered these words. I helped him back into bed, taking care to place the bottle of oxygen next to him.
He switched on the television, which was airing the last news bulletin of the day. I curled up against him, my ear against his chest listening to the beating of his heart, and dozed off in his arms, unafraid.
Toward midnight I got up, put out the lights, and kissed him good night, making sure he was well covered up. He held out his hand to give me a blessing and was asleep before I even reached the door. That evening, as on all previous evenings, I turned to look at him one more time before I left.
I didn’t know that it would be the last time I would ever see him.
THREE
THE ABDUCTION
FEBRUARY 23, 2002
The security escort arrived as planned, a little before four in the morning. It was dark, and I was wearing my campaign uniform: a T-shirt printed with our campaign slogan—FOR A NEW COLOMBIA—jeans, and hiking boots. I put on my fleece jacket and just before leaving, on an impulse, removed my watch.
No one in the house except Pom, my dog, was awake. I kissed her between the ears and left with a small bag containing only what I would need for one night away.
Once I arrived at the airport, I checked that all the security arrangements were in place. The police captain in charge of coordinating the security team pulled a fax from his pocket and showed it to me. “Everything is in order. The authorities have provided you with armored vehicles.” He smiled at me, satisfied that he had done his job.
The rest of the group was already there. The plane took off at dawn. We were stopping first at Neiva, a town 150 miles from Bogotá, before crossing over the Andes to land in Florencia, the capital of the Caquetá department in the Llanos Orientales, a stretch of lush, flat grassland between the Amazon rain forest and the Andes. After that we would go by car to San Vicente.
The stopover was expected to be half an hour but ended up lasting just over two hours. I barely noticed, as my cell phone did not stop ringing; a vicious article in the local press was reporting the split that had occurred within our campaign team. The journalist quoted only the biting comments of those who had deserted our ranks to endorse my competitors. My team was outraged and wanted to get out our side of the story as quickly as possible. I spent most of the time on the telephone going back and forth between my HQ and the editor of the newspaper in question to have our version of the facts published.
We got back on the plane in sweltering heat, and by the time we reached Florencia, we were already behind schedule. However, we could still make the sixty-mile drive to San Vicente in less than two hours.
Florencia Airport had been taken over by the military. A dozen Black Hawk helicopters were lined up on the tarmac, blades rotating, waiting for the order to lift off. As soon as I disembarked from the aircraft, I was met by a colonel in charge of local operations, who led me into an air-conditioned office while my security team contacted those responsible for our journey on the ground and prepared the final details of the next leg.
The colonel was respectful, and with great courtesy and deference he offered to fly us by helicopter to San Vicente.
“They leave every half hour. You can be on the next one.”
“That’s very kind, but there are fifteen of us.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
He left the room, returning ten minutes later looking frustrated, and announced, “We can only take five people on board.”
The captain in charge of my security escort was the first to react. “Some of the security team can remain behind.”
I asked if the chopper could accommodate seven. The colonel nodded. “That’s no problem.” He asked us to wait in his office for the next helicopter.
We expected a half-hour wait. My security team was conferring among themselves, probably deciding who would go with me. One of the escorts began to clean his pistol and put back the bullets that had been removed for the plane journey. While he was handling the gun, he accidentally pulled the trigger, and a shot rang out, thankfully with no consequences. The bullet landed right next to me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, suddenly aware of how edgy I was.
I hated these small incidents, not because of the incidents themselves but because of the conflicting thoughts that entered my head immediately afterward. Bad omen, resonated a monotone voice within me. Smacks of a bad movie. The other voice retorted, What a stupid thing to say. On the contrary, it’s good luck! My team was on the alert, watching for my reaction, and the poor guy who’d fired the shot was now scarlet with embarrassment, apologizing profusely.
“Please, don’t worry. But let’s be careful. We’re all tired,” I said, putting a close to the incident.
My thoughts turned to Papa, but I remembered that phone coverage was sketchy in this region. The wait continued. Some of my group wandered off to the restrooms or to get drinks. I had already seen at least three helicopters depart, and it still wasn’t our turn. I didn’t want to appear impatient, especially since the offer seemed very generous. Finally I went to see what was happening.
The colonel was outside talking to my security officers. When he saw me, he cut short his conversation.
“I’m very sorry, madam, but I have just received instructions not to take you by helicopter. It’s an order from the top, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Well, in that case, we must revert to Plan A. Gentlemen, can we leave right away?”
The silence of my escort team was palpable. Then the colonel stepped forward with the suggestion that I should appeal to his general, who was on the tarmac. “If anyone can give you authorization, it’s him.”
I spotted a large, surly guy issuing orders from the landing strip. Before I had a chance to ask, the colonel nodded; he was indeed the general.
The general’s aggressive tone was disconcerting. “There’s nothing I can do for you. Please leave the runway!” For a moment I thought he had not recognized me, and I tried to explain why I was there. But he knew very well who I was and what I wanted. He was irritated; he kept talking to his subordinates, handing out orders, ignoring me, letting me talk to myself. He surely was prejudiced against me, probably because of the debates in Congress during which I had exposed incidents of corruption among some high-ranking officials. Without realizing it, I had raised the tone of my voice. Cameras appeared out of nowhere, and suddenly we were surrounded by a group of journalists.<
br />
The general put an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the terminal to get me off the runway and away from the cameras. He explained that he was acting on an order, that the president would be arriving shortly, that he had a hundred journalists with him, and that they needed the helicopters to transport them to San Vicente. He added, “If you want to wait here, he’ll walk past. You will be able to speak to him. It’s the best I can do.” I stood there, my arms dangling, wondering if I really ought to go along with this whole charade. A pack of journalists rushed over to film the landing of the presidential plane. Leaving was no longer an option. It would be interpreted as discourteous.
The situation was all the more embarrassing because the previous day we had asked to travel with the group of journalists going to San Vicente, and the president himself had refused. For the last twenty-four hours, the television news had been repeating incessantly that the region had been liberated and that the FARC had completely withdrawn. The president’s trip to San Vicente was planned to prove it. The government had to show the world that the peace process had not been a huge mistake, that it had not led to the loss of control of a sizable portion of national territory to the guerrillas. From what I could see, the zone was under military control; helicopters of the armed forces had not stopped taking off for San Vicente since our arrival. If Pastrana refused again, we simply needed to go by road as originally planned and not waste any more time.
The president’s plane landed, a red carpet was unfurled on the tarmac, and the staircase was placed at the aircraft door. But the door remained closed. Faces appeared at the windows, then quickly withdrew. I stood there, stuck between the row of soldiers on guard and the horde of journalists behind me. I had only one desire: to slip away.
Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Page 5