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COLOMBIA: Rebels Release
Wounded Soldier
By Helda Martínez
BOGOTA (IPS) - After Colombia’s
FARC rebels released 23-year-old soldier
Josué Daniel Calvo, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe said he is not opposed to a
humanitarian swap of imprisoned
insurgents for hostages, as long as the
guerrillas do not return to the
fighting.
On Sunday, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia) handed Calvo over to
a humanitarian commission aboard a
helicopter loaned by Brazil, which
provided logistical assistance for the
operation.
The unilateral release took place at an
undisclosed location in the jungles of
the central department (province) of
Meta.
Calvo was wounded in the leg and seized
by the guerrillas in April 2009 in a
clash between government forces and the
FARC, Colombia’s main rebel group, which
has been fighting since 1964.
His family gave him up for dead, until
they received proof that he was alive
two months after his capture.
The young man joined the army at the age
of 17, "because he considered it his
best option," his father Luis Alberto
said.
The family had suffered forced
displacement because of the nearly
five-decade civil war, and settled in
Tambo in the southwestern department of
Cauca, a poor area with few
opportunities for young people.
When he was recruited, the young peasant
farmer’s dream was to join the Colombia
Battalion that is taking part in the
United Nations peacekeeping mission in
Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. But he ended up
hostage in the jungle instead.
The government’s peace commissioner
Frank Pearl said Calvo asked for respect
for his preference to not speak to the
press.
The commission to which he was handed
over included opposition Liberal Party
Senator Piedad Córdoba, who has mediated
and served as a guarantor of all of the
unilateral releases by the FARC since
2006.
It was also made up of delegates of the
International Committee of the Red Cross
and Catholic bishop of Magangué, in the
Caribbean coastal department of Bolívar,
Leonardo Gómez.
When the helicopter landed at the
airport in Vanguardia de Villavicencio,
the capital of the department of Meta, a
tense silence reigned. The FARC had
stated that Calvo was in extremely poor
health, but he was able to walk, leaning
on a stick and limping, and did not use
the wheelchair that had been provided.
He met with his father and sister in a
private room, which he exited later
wearing camouflage fatigues.
His father showed the media photos of
people from his region who have been
kidnapped or forcibly disappeared in
recent years, and read letters
describing their cases.
Córdoba thanked the ICRC and the
Brazilian government for their
cooperation, and said Calvo had been
handed over in Santa Lucía, "a community
of people who are very poor, where
children are malnourished and adults
have no teeth."
In the last few years, the FARC have
released 13 hostages unilaterally,
including politicians, police and
soldiers.
The senator referred to a new call by
the citizen movement Colombianos y
Colombianas por la Paz (Colombians for
Peace) for a humanitarian exchange
between the government and the
guerrillas, to secure the release of 21
hostages still held by the FARC.
"We are in the process of writing
letters to President Uribe, all of the
presidential candidates and the FARC,"
Córdoba said.
The last hostage that the FARC says it
will hand over unilaterally is
32-year-old Pablo Emilio Moncayo, who
has spent 12 years in the jungle. His
release is to take place Tuesday.
The rebel group also announced that it
would deliver the remains of Julián
Ernesto Guevara, a police officer who
died in captivity in 2006, nearly eight
years after he was captured by the FARC.
The insurgents "told us they have his
remains, but that they have not been
able to bring them out of the jungle
because of the continuous attacks by the
army. They asked us to be on the alert,"
Córdoba added.
Referring to the need for a humanitarian
prisoner swap, the senator said
"yesterday it was very painful to me to
receive a phone call from the boy Johan
Estiven Martínez, asking me to help get
his father released."
When Moncayo is released, José Libio
Martínez will become the longest-held
hostage, having spent more than 12 years
in the jungles of the south of Colombia. |
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