When leftist rebels earlier this month freed a former governor held captive more than two years, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos welcomed the release as a hopeful sign that the National Liberation Army (ELN) had finally sworn off kidnapping as peace talks with the group were getting under way.
However, a darker truth has emerged: Far from a peace gesture, former governor Patrocinio Sanchez Montes de Oca says his captors agreed to his release only on the condition that his older brother, Odin, replaced him in captivity.
Speaking on Thursday from a hospital where he is recovering, the former governor of Choco Province credited his brother with saving his life after he lost 25kg due to a gallbladder infection while a prisoner.
He said his only regret was that during the brief handover three weeks ago his armed captors did not give him more time to express his gratitude to his brother for the selfless gesture.
“I was very emaciated, very thin. I looked like one of those people in Africa dying of hunger,” Montes de Oca said. “The first time I saw myself in a mirror I was scared.”
The release came less than a week after Santos and the ELN announced that they had agreed to a formal peace process to end a half-century of bloodshed in the Andean nation.
However, news of the ELN’s requirements for the swap has those negotiations at risk even before they have started.
The biggest member of Santos’ governing coalition is calling on the president to freeze talks until Odin Sanchez Montes de Oca is released.
At the time of the announcement, Santos admonished the rebel group for kidnapping, which he said was incompatible with the peace talks.
The ELN is Colombia’s second-largest rebel group, with an estimated 1,500 fighters, and largely finances its insurgency through extortion and kidnappings.
The biggest and far-stronger rebel movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been in peace talks with the government for three years.
Herbin Hoyos, a journalist who runs a radio program that broadcasts messages from loved ones to captives held in the jungle, said it is not uncommon for armed groups to exchange prisoners.
Sometimes it is out of compassion when a hostage is severely ill while other times it is necessary because the captive manages a family’s finances and is the only person who can raise the necessary funds to pay a steep ransom.
“The problem is sometimes those who are exchanged aren’t returned,” Hoyos said.
Montes de Oca said he does not harbor resentment against his captors and even recalled fondly acts of humanity from some of his jailers, like the husband of the guerrilla unit’s commander who would frequently give him a hug to boost his spirits.
“My only goal now is to maximize every second of my life,” said the former governor, who is 53.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion