Hostage Nation by Victoria Bruce Read Free Book Online Page B

rain along a
trocha
, a hidden guerrilla pathway in the Serranía de Perijá mountains, seventy miles from her home in Valledupar. She’d been to this place several times before, each time to meet a FARC guerrilla named Octavio. Sometimes she carried a heavy pack with boots, cell phones, medicine, batteries—anything they had demanded of her in exchange for a meeting. Each time she came hoping for “proof of life” and desperately seeking some kind of monetary demand from the guerrillas who had kidnapped her husband several months before, on March 22, 1998. As she made her way, Medina became anguished at the thought that she might have to turn back once again without evidence that her husband was still alive. When she arrived at her meeting place, “it was raining really hard,” Medina recalled in a 2006 court testimony. “Octavio asked me to come close to the tent so that I wouldn’t get wet. I said, ‘No. I’m not moving from this stone until you promise me that you’re going to tell me how Elías is. You have three options: You can kidnap me with Elías, you can give me the proof, or you can shoot me. But I’m not going to move.’”
    Medina’s gall was born of exhaustion and frustration. Her will and morale had been tested tremendously over the past several months in agame of cat and mouse that had been played since the day a group of seven FARC guerrillas took her husband, Elías Ochoa, and his brother, Eliécer, at gunpoint from their ranch in El Paso, a hundred miles south of Valledupar, near the Ariguaní River. Medina arrived at the ranch to find that one of the family’s bodyguards had been shot, and she half carried, half dragged him back to the house to get help. Elías Ochoa, who had spent two years as the mayor of Valledupar, was taken with his brother to a FARC hideout in the mountains. Because the protocol for FARC kidnappings was very well known, Ochoa knew right away that he would be ransomed to his family. He hoped this would happen soon, of course, but the FARC’s strategy in the business of kidnapping had always been one of extreme patience. With seldom any pressure from the military or police, hiding a hostage in Colombia was a relatively inexpensive and easy undertaking. Whenever there was a perceived threat, the guerrillas, competent at navigating difficult jungle and mountain terrain, would simply march their hostages to another remote area. Taking their time to contact the victim’s family was a strategy that the guerrillas felt helped immensely when it came time to negotiate a price for the hostage’s freedom: The emotional turmoil brought about by the disappearance of a loved one was then exacerbated by the long silence that followed, sometimes for several months, sometimes for more than a year. Families suffered immeasurably, waiting moment by moment for any communication from the kidnappers. When it finally came, by way of a note, a visit, or a phone call, the family members were often so emotionally weakened that they were willing to agree immediately to the kidnappers’ demands.

    Simón Trinidad and his partner, Lucero, speak with local campesinos in 2000 in San Vicente del Caguán (inside the demilitarized zone) about the FARC’s plans. Photo: Salud Hernández-Mora
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    For the victim, the interrogation about one’s fiscal capacity began almost immediately after capture: “We know that you stole five hundred million pesos of government money when you were mayor. How many cattle do you own? We saw that you sold a farm for three hundred million pesos. How much is your emerald mine worth?” Such research about an individual’s life was something that the guerrillas undertook in order to estimate the value of their commodity and to plan a negotiation strategy. Commonly, the kidnappers would have some prior knowledge of their victim’s financial affairs, as well as a general