MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Freed Colombian hostages condemn kidnaps as “torture”

The two Colombian hostages liberated by the cocaine funded FARC, Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo described the guerrilla methods as “brutal” and condemned kidnapping as a crime against humanity.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who played a leading role in the liberation of the hostages described FARC as "insurgents", an army with a revolutionary political objective and which occupies space and Colombia. "There's no way they can be labeled as terrorists" said Chavez. For the US and Europe FARC is a terrorist group. Ms Rojas, solicitor and former Colombian vice president candidate who spent six of her 44 years in captivity in the jungle described the FARC as a "delinquent" organization. "I'm terribly concerned that they (FRAC) should say they are an army of the people, when you can see they train people to kidnap and kidnapping is a crime against humanity" she insisted. "We all know they kidnap, have hostages, bombs, weapons and all the actions they are involved in". However former Congress member Gonzalez who also spent six years as a FARC hostage in the jungle described the group "as an insurrect organization outside of the law", and although she never suffered physical torture or was chained, "kidnapping must be considered a form of torture". "We were terribly affected seeing some of the hostages having to sleep tied to a post", she said of the chained hostages. Ms Gonzalez said that the liberation of the remaining hostages "will take much time and effort", but also cautioned that "the stance of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe must be taken into account for he also has the best intentions of peace for Colombia". Recalling life conditions next to another ten hostages Ms Gonzalez (who became a widow while in captivity) regretted the health conditions they live under "because there are no possibilities of having medical assistance and they really don't know what they are suffering from, and they are suffering". Ms Gonzales also revealed in a press conference in Caracas the long walks to which they were exposed "under extremely dangerous conditions" from one camp to another. "We could hear the bombs: helicopters with their machine guns firing and us very close. War is horror", she said adding that hostages are under constant threat. In case the Colombian Army tried to liberate us the "order they had was to assassinate us", she said. "We were absolutely aware of this. Even worse when they locked us up, because any attempt to flee in such a situation is impossible to work out".