Posted on 04/24/2002 3:09:15 PM PDT by Darkshadow
The Associated Press
| BOGOTA, Colombia April 24 — American college professor and peace activist Bernard Lafayette came to Colombia hoping to meet with Colombian rebels. He got his wish and almost wound up being kidnapped by them. |
Lafayette, along with a state governor and several Colombian priests, was leading a march of almost 1,000 peace activists to an embattled mountain village when they were stopped Sunday by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The rebels led the march leaders into the hills, saying the local FARC commander would grant them an interview, something Lafayette said they had hoped for.
Lafayette, director of the University of Rhode Island's Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, was released after a few hours, without any meeting with the leadership. They told him to lead the marchers back to Medellin, where the march had originated. A priest who was also captured was later released.
But the FARC continue to hold Antioquia state Gov. Guillermo Gaviria, and former Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri, who were spirited deep into the mountains on horseback. Echeverri serves as the governor's peace adviser.
Colombia's armed forces chief, Gen. Fernando Tapias, said the FARC had its back to the wall after the country's peace process collapsed in February, and are not to be trifled with.
"It's one thing to pet a lion that just ate and another thing to pet a hungry lion," Tapias said. "The FARC is a wild animal right now and you can't have confidence in their procedures or their chiefs."
Lafayette, who had marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King and by his count was arrested 27 times during U.S. civil rights protests, came to Colombia hoping to talk peace to the rebels, who have been waging war against a succession of elected governments in this South American country for 38 years.
Lafayette said he was prepared to encounter danger.
"If something happens to me then I have to take responsibility, because I believe in this cause," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday. "If not, I wouldn't be here."
"Nonviolence means you have to trust people who are not trustworthy," he added.
Lafayette almost became another kidnapping statistic in Colombia where some 3,000 people are abducted each year when the FARC stopped the peace march just short of its goal, the town of Caicedo in northwest Colombia.
"About seven of us were escorted to an area where we were supposedly were going to meet the head person of that particular FARC group," Lafayette said.
The rebels then said the local commander only wanted to talk to the governor, the former defense minister, a priest and "the American," and that they should be prepared to stay overnight.
"That helped us realize that the mood had changed and that ... we did not know how long they were going to keep us," Lafayette recalled.
The rebels were then told that Lafayette, who is 61 and suffers from diabetes, only had one day's worth of medicine with him and two days' worth in his luggage.
The other hostages urged the rebels to release Lafayette.
"The governor and the priest prevailed on them not to take me, because of my medication and, because I was an American, that would cause big problems for them," he said.
After he was freed, Lafayette went to Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city, where he was to lead a conference on nonviolence along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Ireland.
Colombian President Andres Pastrana, meanwhile, ruled out once again a possible prisoner exchange with the rebels, who now hold as hostages in addition to Gaviria and Echeverri presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dozen state legislators, five members of the national parliament, about 40 government troops and a former Cabinet member, Fernando Araujo.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
I'd like to introduce you to Jeffrey Dahmer.
Just string this catsup packet around your neck...
Faced with kidnapping and (probable) death, he is suddenly an American and ( reading between the lines ) makes use of this to escape his fate.
Now this anal orifice will come home and bray about how nice the guerillas are, and how the US should be nice to them...
And this guy is a professor! Does he also play with coral snakes?
After he was freed, Lafayette went to Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city, where he was to lead a conference on nonviolence along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Ireland.
What do you do with people like this? You just know that if they had kept him someone or several someones would have put their lives in danger to rescue him.
I don't know. Maybe we should just wash our hands of this type. If he gets taken again tell the rebels, "fine, you want him you have to keep him."
a.cricket
The word that 'means you have to trust people who are not trustworthy' is not called Nonviolence. Its called Stupidity.
That is his first mistake: he left without Jesse Jackson.
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