FARC Releases Hostage After 12 Years
FARC guerrillas freed one of Colombia's longest-held hostages, an army corporal seized by insurgents when they overran his base in December 1997.
AP Photo | Juan Carlos Hernandez - main image from EFE Colombia's school teacher Gustavo Moncayo speaks next to a poster of his son, Pablo Emilio, a Colombian soldier who was captured a decade ago by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as he arrives to Valencia, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008. Moncayo, who walked across Colombia, is now in Venezuela to rally support for a prisoner swap that would release hundreds of hostages held by the rebels. |
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Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo was released late Tuesday evening and flown to an unannounced location in southern Colombia by a Brazilian helicopter, where guerrillas handed him over to a humanitarian team led by Colombian Sen. Piedad Córdoba.
Gustavo Moncayo was the first to embrace his son on the tarmac at Florencia airport in the south of Colombia. His mother carried white daisies, and his four sisters beamed as they hugged and kissed Sgt. Moncayo.
A Red Cross spokesman said that Sgt. Moncayo was in generally good health upon arrival.
“After more than 12 years in captivity, Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo was handed over this afternoon,” the Red Cross said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The elder Moncayo, a high school teacher, hiked more than 620 miles across Colombia in 2007 with a chain around his neck to demand the release of his son. Sgt. Moncayo was taken captive on Dec. 21, 1997 at the age of 19 during an attack on a mountain outpost.
“I heard my father, that he wanted me to take off the chains. So I'm going to do that right now,'” the soldier said as he pulled the chains over his father's hands.
Sgt. Moncayo thanked the presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil, saying they helped to secure his freedom.
Sgt. Moncayo, now 31, is the second hostage freed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia this week. The other, Pvt. Josué Daniel Calvo, was released on Sunday. Calvo, who had been held for 11 months, is being treated in a Bogotá military hospital for leg wounds he suffered in a battle at the time of his capture.
Since taking office in 2002, President Alvaro Uribe, backed by U.S. anti-narcotics aid, has waged an offensive that has driven the FARC from main highways and reduced kidnapping rates by 93% to 213 last year.
FARC guerrillas still have at least 20 police and soldiers as well as dozens of civilians and politicians hostage, and now want the Colombian government to approve an exchange of jailed rebels for remaining captives. The government allegedly has 200 or more suspected rebels.
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