free at last: thank god

Óscar is free at last. After eight years of being held hostage [eight years!], this ex-congressman is out of the FARC's power and into the free world. My heart goes out to you and your family.

Colombia's brilliant successors to García Márquez

A long-awaited authorised biography of Gabriel García Márquez, A Life by Gerald Martin, is out next week. Yet, more than a quarter-century after his Nobel prize, ensuing generations of Colombian writers have adapted their styles to a changed reality. Their voices too should be heard.

When García Márquez began writing in the 1950s, Colombia waslargely rural. But Macondo's banana plantations are worlds from the downtown skyscrapers and sprawling shanty towns of the capital Bogotá. Jorge Franco, in his 40s, is among writers embraced by the 1990s urban movement known as "McCondo" (as in McDonald's, Apple Macintoshes and condos). As the Medellín-born Franco told me recently in the cafe of the new Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Centre in Bogotá's colonial quarter of La Candelaria, his generation respectfully threw off the magic realist mantle of "Gabo".

Franco's bestselling novel Rosario Tijeras (1999) bracketed himas a "narco-realist" - though a highly lyrical one - and was made into a film. Looking back to the most violent period in Medellín, before the drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, its focus was a teenage "sicaria", a hit woman for a cartel. His next novel, Paraíso Travel (2001) - the film version of which has been this year's box-office hit in Colombia - traced an illegal immigrant's journey to New York.

The turmoil of war and drug-trafficking, displacement and emigration, has remapped the country since Gabo's heyday. Evelio Rosero is among writers taking part this weekend in a Colombian cross-arts festival, Colombiage, at London's Riverside Studios. His haunting novel The Armies (2007), published by MacLehose press on November 6 in a translation by Anne McLean, is about the war still being fought in the countryside, despite the record of President Álvaro Uribe in making cities safer. It was based on news bulletins and tales from some of the country's 3.8 million "desplazados". In a high-rise Bogotá hotel, Rosero told me he was spurred on by the rise of paramilitaries and private armies, and "the unarmed being gunned down by the armed". His elderly protagonist is the "memory of a time that's vanished - the shock of an older person horrified by the world a new generation is creating."

That new world is another reason to pay heed to these writers.Reflecting on decades of conflict and extremity can lead to profound truths. Juan Carlos Botero is the son of South America's most famous artist, Fernando Botero. His mother was kidnapped (then freed) in 1973, and since 2000 he has lived in Miami, where we met. One of his interests is the imperceptible step into bloodshed: "It's very easy for the line to be crossed - it begins casually. Then it's too late." In a short story, two teenagers stumble on a police torture chamber, growing fascinated, then bored. Botero says, "if you're bombarded with violence, you become numb to it, and finally a participant. People try to solve domestic issues that way. It becomes a culture. Yet as a writer, you have to add something more than the anecdote - a deeper truth."

That culture is also questioned by Mario Mendoza, whose psychological thriller novel Satanás (2002) became a hit film last year. It was based on the Pozzetto massacre of 1986 in Bogotá, when a Vietnam veteran murdered 29 people, mostly strangers, before committing suicide. For Mendoza, whom I met in a bar in La Candelaria, the novel was an exorcism. As a friend of the killer (a fellow student whose thesis was on Jekyll and Hyde), he was beset by guilt at the thought that he might have averted the massacre. Driven to writing urban, apocalyptic fiction about the "dark side of Bogota", Mendoza sees political violence as reflecting "domestic violence, joblessness, what happens in streets, buses, in your house".

Not all these writers are yet translated. But that, as we paydue homage to Gabo, is all the more reason to lend them an ear.

Herbin Hoyos has spent 15 years fulfilling a promise. On the morning of Sunday, March 13, 1994, while he was broadcasting his radio program “Amanecer en América” (Morning in America), two FARC guerrillas, posing as winners of an on-the-air contest, arrived at the Caracol studios in Bogota and kidnapped him. “That was when guerrillas would take journalists in order to later free them and send messages with them to the government,” he remembers.

After a long trip in an SUV and another on foot through the jungles of Colombia, he arrived at a camp the following afternoon. “What impacted me most was seeing a man whose right arm was chained to a tree. His name was Nacianceno Murcia Correa and he was 62 years old". With his free hand, he showed me a radio he had, taking it out from underneath a plastic tarp which covered his body. The radio had been his only companion in the oblivion of his two years in captivity. “Hey, aren’t you the one from that program? What happened to you on Sunday when you didn’t finish your show?” he asked. Herbin, who couldn’t believe that he had a listener in such a remote place, explained to him what had happened. “You journalists should do something for us. Could you imagine that through this device I could hear messages sent to me from someone? From my wife, my kids?” said Murcia. Herbin promised him that when he was freed he would do just that.

The first broadcast of “Las voces del secuestro,” (the voices of kidnapping), took place on April 10th, 12 days after the journalist was rescued by the Army during combat with the Farc. “Those who are kidnapped hear us, and from now on we are going to be with them,” were his words. That is the way it has been ever since. The first day he received 40 calls and in that month he had a list of 200 people in captivity that he would reach out to on a regular basis. The program has had more than 16,000 cases and every weekend morning, no matter whether from Iraq or Chechnya, his voice continues to alleviate the loneliness and desperation of those in captivity. The program has never been interrupted although he has covered eleven international conflicts since it first began. “The idea is to create goals for those in captivity - dreams to fulfill when they return- so that they don’t give up.” For this work, Herbin Hoyos just recently earned two important recognitions: the Simon Bolivar journalist of the year award and the National Peace Prize, which he shares with freed soldier William Perez. Perez helped save Ingrid Betancourt’s life when she was in captivity.

Hoyos’ program has helped family members of kidnapping victims feel closer to their loved ones. Not long ago Herbin invited Jenny Mendieta to work with him at Las Voces del Secuestro. Mendieta is a young woman who hopes that her most devoted listener is her father, Lt. Col. Luis Mendieta, who has been held in captivity for more than ten years. “I have direct communication with him, and in each broadcast I feel like I am right next to him, there in the jungle,” she says.
But perhaps nobody can describe the program’s effects better than that audience being held captive. That is the case of former congresswoman Gloria Polanco, who called Herbin her guardian angel, after she as freed in February of this year. “It was my sustenance, my life and I anxiously awaited Saturdays at midnight. It moved me when he reported that my kids, who had been kidnapped with me, were free. I cried when he painfully informed me of the assassination of my husband, Jaime Losada, and he sent me a hug of solidarity from afar.” Herbin hasn’t forgotten how difficult it was to find the appropriate words to transmit that terrible news. “Gloria, you have to be calm, because from heaven your husband will be there with you. That is the way it will be when you are free and from then on forever”.

Herbin witnessed all of the dramas that kidnapping generates. Like when the then wife of former minister Fernando Araújo (who escaped from the Farc in early 2007), not knowing whether or not he was still alive, sent him the message asking for him to understand why she had decided to start a new life, as the uncertainty was killing her. Or when a four-year-old boy asked his father to come back soon because “the ‘raton Pérez’ (the tooth fairy) had taken away his teeth and he wouldn’t bring him a present if his father didn’t return”.

He painfully thinks of Chikao Muramatsu, the kidnapped Japanese businessman who was killed by the Farc. After news of his kidnapping came out, his family began to send a cassette every two months with messages to the program. One time, Herbin asked some visiting Japanese journalists to translate , with correct pronunciation, some of the words that he had written for Murmatsu. “I learned a repertoire in Japanese that included phrases such as ´keep faith and hope´ to tell him every week. I dreamed about one day meeting him, but they killed him. I later spoke with the guerrilla who was responsible for his death who cynically told me that he was such a noble man that he voluntarily cooked for his kidnappers”.

According to Herbin, he has given some 11,000 “freedom hugs”, a phrase coined by him to describe his meetings with the freed hostages. “At that time I tell them that I will forever be their brother.” He still recalls the day a man came to the studio in rags. His name was Vicente Arroyave, and had just escaped the jungle. The first thing he did was go to the studio in order to claim his hug. “You saved my life,” he said. During his captivity he had tried to kill himself on three occasions because his captors told him that his wife had left him and that his children were headed on the wrong track. “Like a miracle, one day they gave him a radio and when he turned it on, he heard the voices of his family telling him that they were waiting for him,” says Hoyos.

After the happiness that freedom produces, the freed hostage begins one of the most difficult stages. “Many times they cannot reconstruct their lives. Psychological rehabilitation can’t happen without the economic means to be able to start again,” he says. That is why he recently created a fund for their return to freedom, to open up an account of $1,500 USD for each of the 26 police and military members who were kidnapped, as well as civilians of limited resources, with the support of the producers of the film La Milagrosa (The Miracle Worker), who donated a part of the film’s box office earnings.

When he’s not working on the program or at his television production business, it’s possible that Herbin is flying his ultra-light plane along with a newly freed friend. As he is not only a journalist but also sociologist and pilot, it occurred to him that the best way to help the released hostage is to give them the chance to see the jungle from above. “It looks small and non-threatening”, he adds.

Herbin says that he has received several threats. Nevertheless he doesn´t plan on retracting his promise that he made to Nacianceno, who died ten years ago, two years after being freed. Each time he gives a “freedom hug” Herbin is reminded of the words that Nacianceno said to him when they first met. “Thank you very much for never abandoning me”.

obama makes it up: repeating union distortions

In Wednesday night's debate with John McCain, Barack Obama defended his opposition to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement this way: "The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination, on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been any prosecutions." Among the many falsehoods in this Presidential campaign, this is one of the worst.

It is true that Colombia has a history of violence. But since President Álvaro Uribe took office in 2002, that violence has been substantially reduced. The homicide rate through the end of 2007 was down by 40.4% and the rate among union members was down almost 87%. There is nothing "consistent" about a drop to 26 union member murders in 2007 from 155 in 2000.

As for prosecutions: In union-member killings, there were zero convictions from 1991-2000 and one in 2001. But from 2002-2007, there were 80. According to the Colombian attorney general's office, 29% of those murders were "found to have been results of theft, petty crime and random violence unrelated to union activity." Mr. Uribe has nonetheless created a special investigative unit for crimes against union members, and he expanded a special government protection program for unions.

More broadly, in 2004 Mr. Uribe pushed through congress a judicial reform that has reduced the average time needed to issue an indictment for a homicide to 50 days from 493. He also increased the budget for the attorney general's office to $598 million in 2008, from $346 million in 2002 -- a 73% increase.

If Colombia hopes to keep spending on judicial improvements and better law enforcement, it needs an expanding economy. In addition to misrepresenting the country's progress on reducing violence, Mr. Obama has never explained how denying Colombians the FTA will help the country reduce violence. Maybe this is because he knows he's merely repeating union distortions.

updates from economy to culture

Ecopetrol Makes Wall Street Debut

Colombia's state Ecopetrol has made its US stock market debut at what looks like a most inopportune time, with oil prices weakening and financial market turmoil turning investors away from risky emerging market equities.

The Latins are Coming

A wave of Latin American film festivals, including a Colombian one, are sweeping into London in time to take the chill off the long, grey winter.

obama says no: trade agreement

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is against scheduling a congressional vote after next month's election on a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a campaign adviser said.
Concerns about violence against labor leaders and low worker organizing rates in that nation haven't been resolved, and labor rights must ''be addressed in a meaningful way'' before a vote, said Lael Brainard, who represented the Obama campaign at the Washington International Trade Association today. ``This is the moment the U.S. has leverage.''

Democrats in Congress earlier this year delayed a vote on the trade accord, and lobbyists have sought a vote after the Nov. 4 election in a so-called lame-duck session of Congress. President Bush made approval of the Colombia free-trade agreement a priority for his last year in office.
Philip Levy, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an adviser to John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, said he doubts Congress will vote on Colombia this year.

my favorite book goes to the movies: News of a Kidnapping

Gabriel García Márquez’s book “News of a Kidnapping” will be adapted for the big screen by Mexican director Pedro Pablo Ibarra, who directed some episodes for latin HBO series “Capadocia”. The movie will begin shooting in 2009 and is being produced by Argos Producciones from Mexico and Caracol Films from Colombia. The film will reach theaters in 2010. “News of a Kidnapping” is a non fiction book, published in 1996, that tells the story of many people who were kidnapped by drug traffic kingpin Pablo Escobar, leader of the Cartel de Medellín

operation Jaque: more details

Two Israeli advisors came to a military base in Colombia to train special forces for the rescue operation. They also gave training in interpersonal skills, panic management, stress management and they trained them in Krav Maga, a self-defense technique developed in Israel, with which they were able to overcome ‘César’ and ‘Gafas’ in the helicopter which would ultimately bring the hostages to safety. Krava Maga is the official combat and personal defense system used by Israeli defense forces, the Israeli police and security services. It is also used by many forces in the U.S. military. What is not sure is how ‘César’ got his black eye in the helicopter when he was overtaken by the Colombian military, because the Krav Maga avoids physical injury. The Colombian special agent told us that it was a “knock out” that was delivered out of a vengeful rage by American Keith Stansell.