Image on right: In Bogota's main square, relatives and friends of kidnapped people by the FARC march to demand the release of all the hostages. (AP Photo)
In January 2008, two Colombian hostages who had been held by the FARC guerilla group were freed in an agreement brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. However, more than 700 hostages remain, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. citizens.
Ginny Bouvier is a senior program officer in USIP’s Grants and Fellowships program. She has worked extensively on Latin American regional issues, and has served as a professor of Latin American literature and culture and a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America.
In this interview, Bouvier provided her own unique insights on the Colombia hostage situation.
- Describe the Colombian civil war. Who are the protagonists? What are its origins?
- The Colombian conflict has lasted more than half a century. Have its causes shifted over time?
- What are the implications of these changes for ending the conflict?
- Who are the hostages in Colombia? How extensive is the problem of kidnapping?
- What is the significance of the hostages?
- Why have these hostages so captured the imagination of the Colombian public?
- Does the release of Rojas and Gonzalez signal a possible rapprochement between the government and the FARC?
- What about the fate of the other hostages, including Betancourt and the three Americans? Is this a harbinger of more releases?
- What did Chavez have to gain in all this? Is his effort meant to spite the U.S.?
- Previously, relations between Colombia and Venezuela were strained as a result of a failed hostage liberation attempt. Why was this effort successful? How might future initiative succeed?
- What work has USIP done to ameliorate the Colombia conflict?
Describe the Colombian civil war. Who are the protagonists? What are its origins?
The Colombian conflict has multiple armed actors that include paramilitary groups, guerrilla organizations, government security forces and their allies, drug lords, and organized and petty criminals. These groups are fighting each other for control of resources and power—often endangering and displacing civilians in the process. The origins of the conflict date to the decade from 1948-1958 when "La Violencia" claimed the lives of some 200,000 people in a partisan conflict that ravaged the Colombian countryside. An agreement between the Liberal and Conservative parties to alternate power reduced the violence but also sowed the seeds for the emergence of armed guerrilla groups in the early 1960s. Today, two of the oldest of these groups—the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN)—remain active, as do paramilitary groups and other smaller bands of guerrillas.
Initially, the guerrilla groups, like other movements of their day, sought to change the tremendous exclusion, inequity, and injustice that they felt characterized the entrenched political system. Over time, however, their barbaric tactics, coupled with their engagement in criminal activities—including drug-trafficking, kidnapping and extortion—marginalized them from many of the sectors and causes they claimed to represent, and earned them (along with the paramilitary umbrella organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)) the designation of "terrorist groups" by the U.S. and the EU This status is currently the subject of one of the latest controversies in Colombia.
The Colombian conflict has lasted more than half a century. Have its causes shifted over time?
We often find that the original causes for the violence are not the same as the reasons for the perpetuation of the conflict. That is, addressing the roots of the violence is important but may not be sufficient to bring peace. This seems to be the case in Colombia, where the drivers of conflict have multiplied over time. Drug trafficking, kidnapping, and corruption—often undertaken to finance illegal armed groups—have perpetuated and accelerated the violence. Impunity for these newer criminal activities has eroded public confidence in democratic institutions. Furthermore, more than three million people have now been displaced by the conflict, creating a humanitarian crisis of intolerable human suffering.
What are the implications of these changes for ending the conflict?
With all these new factors at play, addressing the original causes of conflict may not be sufficient.
In fact, some of the root causes of Colombia’s violence—inequity, exclusion, and marginalization—have been partially addressed. Colombia’s progressive sectors have access to political power that they did not have several decades ago through new political parties and entities such as the coalition known as the Polo Democrático Alternativo. A number of progressive mayors have been elected in some of Colombia’s most important urban centers. Human rights guarantees (negotiated when several guerrilla groups demobilized nearly two decades ago) are enshrined in the 1991 constitution and are further protected by the Constitutional Court and other institutions. While poverty and social inequity thrive and agrarian reform is sorely needed, a consensus has increasingly supported addressing these issues of injustice through non-violent mechanisms. This trend is supported by recent changes in the international environment as well—particularly given the rise of popular leftist governments throughout the region.
Any eventual peace process will need to consider how to create mechanisms for dealing with both the original and current drivers of conflict. In the absence of effective mechanisms, poverty, desperate living conditions, and lack of opportunities will continue to provide fertile ground for recruitment and illicit activities, and enhance the likelihood that war will resume—even if a settlement is reached.
Who are the hostages in Colombia? How extensive is the problem of kidnapping?
There are two main groups of hostages in Colombia. The first, known as the canjeables ("exchangeable ones") included until recently Clara Rojas (a lawyer, campaign manager, and vice-presidential candidate in absentia) and former Congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez. This group includes several dozen high-profile figures—including prominent legislators, governors, high-ranking military officers, three U.S. citizens, and the former presidential candidate and dual-French citizen Ingrid Betancourt. The newly freed Rojas was detained with Betancourt during the latter’s campaign for the presidency in February 2002. Others were seized at different times—some as long as a decade ago—and under differing circumstances. The FARC prizes them for their potential value in negotiations with the Colombian government.
The second group the FARC is holding consists of several hundred "economic" hostages who were kidnapped for ransom. This is a practice that is widely used not only by the FARC, but also by paramilitaries, and to a lesser extent, by the ELN. Just days after the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, six tourists were reported kidnapped in the Chocó region of Colombia. Thousands of kidnap victims have suffered captivities of short duration and been released following payment of a ransom. Kidnapping has declined somewhat in recent years, but it continues to be prevalent. Mexico has now surpassed Colombia as the kidnap capital of the world, and Brazil and Haiti also face this problem.
What is the significance of the hostages?
First and on a general level, kidnapping and extortion has helped finance all of the illegal armed groups. The continued practice of kidnapping, prohibited by international humanitarian laws governing armed conflicts, both perpetuates the conflict and is a sign of the degradation of the Colombian conflict. The trend undermines freedom of mobility and creates a climate of fear. Hostage taking limits economic opportunities for Colombia, as it discourages Colombians and others from traveling within the country and undermines the country’s reputation at home and abroad. The practice has contributed to the militarization of Colombian society. It bolsters support for strengthening the military and police, and it generates heavy investment in an entire industry composed of security firms, bodyguards, negotiating companies and the like.
Why have these hostages so captured the imagination of the Colombian public?
The hostages offer us universal images of the human condition at its most vulnerable. At some basic level, the hostages represent all of us. Their existence is a concrete symbol, albeit an extreme one, of the ways that we are all taken hostage by violence.
War heightens our vulnerability and reduces us to feeling powerless. We are not powerless in these situations, but we don’t always know how best to exert our power. Often our first reaction as a society is to respond with violence. In the case of the hostages, we see how violence frequently begets violence. Military rescue operations have been notoriously unsuccessful, sometimes leading to the death of the very hostages who were targets of the rescue attempts.
We are called on to find other ways to respond. In one of the "proofs of life" recently provided to the wife of detainee Colonel Mendieta, the detained hostage writes, "It is not the physical pain that draws my attention, not the chains around my neck that torment me, but the mental anguish, the evilness of evil and the indifference of good [people], as though we are worthless, as if we did not exist."
The hostages challenge us to work together toward concrete goals. Every individual and sector has something to contribute and, collectively, success is possible, as we have seen with the release of Rojas and Gonzalez.
Their release is a humanitarian act that represents a gesture of good faith. The Colombian government and the FARC are still pretty far apart on many issues, but this is at least a first step in setting the stage for future efforts to address these other issues. Further confidence building measures will be required from each side to move the process along. There is clearly a legacy of mistrust to be overcome, which is why facilitation and mediation by third parties—the Catholic Church, diplomats, political leaders, and civil society—may be needed. The process may not be straightforward, however, and it will require persistence and patience.
Clearly the hope is that the release of these two hostages will initiate a restoration of confidence that could lead to other steps including the release of all remaining hostages—both the remaining 44 canjeables and the hundreds of economic hostages held by all of the armed groups. The government is already hinting at possible releases of FARC prisoners. If the leadership of the FARC has any hopes of entering into a peace process and at some point becoming part of the greater fabric of Colombian society, they and the other armed groups would do well to listen carefully to the resounding message from Colombian society and the world that the kidnapping must stop and all the hostages must be released.
What did Chavez have to gain in all this? Is his effort meant to spite the U.S.?
It would be a grave error to interpret Chavez’s role solely in a bilateral context, or to understand his actions as part of a strategy for provoking U.S. ire. First, a successful release of the hostages—particularly the U.S. citizens—should be celebrated in the U.S. For nearly five years, U.S. efforts to secure the release of the three U.S. military contractors have been unsuccessful. Hence, any steps that might lead toward that goal should be welcomed. The U.S. appears to have supported Chavez’s efforts, and the mediation was conducted in consultation with both Colombian and U.S. officials.
Secondly, Chavez’s role responds to his own national interests. The Colombian conflict has impacted all of the neighboring countries with refugee flows, arms exchanges, border skirmishes, and the like. Many thousands of Colombians have crossed the border into Venezuela seeking asylum or refuge, and the presence of Colombian armed insurgents in these regions has also contributed to the militarization of the Venezuelan side of the border.
Furthermore, securing the release of the Colombian hostages has tremendous political payoffs for Chavez to the extent that it bolsters his image as a diplomat and statesman. The Venezuelan Congress was strongly supportive of Chavez’s efforts and, unlike the Colombian public and the broader diplomatic community, seemed to back his call to remove the FARC from the terrorist lists.
The dilemma for Chavez and for anyone dealing with illegal armed actors—be they called rebels, insurgents, belligerents, or terrorists—is that the facilitator or mediator role relies on the trust and willingness of the parties in conflict to accept the third-party mediation.
In this respect, Chavez’s defense of the FARC cause and his public call to remove the group from the terrorist lists following the release of Rojas and Gonzalez were widely seen as premature and politically unpalatable. Perhaps the move was designed to maintain the confidence of the FARC or as a response to a deal negotiated behind closed doors. However, the act appears to have compromised Chavez’s options for engaging in a neutral brokering of a solution. To the extent that Chavez is seen as a spokesperson for the FARC, his future roles in negotiating a humanitarian accord may become more limited. That does not mean that there is no future role for Chavez, just that his role is likely to change. His relationship with the FARC could still assist in securing further releases or could help set the stage for talks about peace. The trick will be for him simultaneously to maintain (or regain) the trust of the Colombian government, particularly given the rather rocky relationship we have seen emerge between the two presidents.
Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba was the catalyst and facilitator for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s engagement of Chavez in the mediation that led to the release of Rojas and Gonzales. Her efforts built on a history of other efforts. The family members of the hostages have been lobbying individually and collectively for a humanitarian accord to provide the basis for the release of all the hostages. The father of one of the hostages even walked across Colombia to generate attention and mobilize support for such an accord. Other relatives have been engaged in non-stop shuttle diplomacy at home and abroad.
In recent years, the governments of France, Switzerland, and Spain have put forth detailed proposals for what an accord might look like and how it might be implemented. These proposals are being revisited at present and may contribute to useful blueprints for moving forward. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has a personal commitment to the release of the hostages, and has held high-level conversations with President Uribe in an effort to secure the release of Ingrid Betancourt, who is much beloved in both countries. Members of the U.S. Congress have offered to be present in the zone for such an exchange and have traveled to Colombia to further this agenda. Many other Latin American and European leaders have offered their assistance. The Catholic Church has been engaged quietly behind the scenes in meeting with the parties and continues to broker the conditions for a humanitarian accord. Civil society has become increasingly active around the issue of the hostages, and is likely to continue to engage until they are freed. The International Committee of the Red Cross was also instrumental in executing the logistical arrangements for the release of Rojas and Gonzales.
What work has USIP done to ameliorate the Colombia conflict?
USIP has supported groups in Colombia and the United States working to bring peace to that country. We have conducted training programs in conflict resolution with Colombian partners in some of the most conflicted zones; supported local capacity-building on issues related to reintegration, rehabilitation, and reconciliation; and sponsored research on a variety of topics, including the role of the business community in the reintegration of the paramilitaries. The Institute has collaborated with and supported other groups to bring attention to the plight of the hostages, the regionalization of the conflict, and the importance of basic human rights conditions for sustainable peace. We have sponsored panels and forums of academics to encourage research and analysis of the Colombian conflict and peacebuilding initiatives. We are supporting a peace scholar who is writing a dissertation that analyzes why displaced youth in Colombia might choose to join armed groups. In the coming year, the Institute plans to publish an edited volume that showcases some of this research and these peace initiatives.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.