MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FARC committed war crimes and act on paranoiac cowardice

Former hostage Sigifredo Lopez, gestures during a press conference in Cali (AP)

The last civilian hostage to be released by the Colombian rebel group FARC revealed that eleven of his kidnapped peers were killed shot in the back, by the guerrillas in an act of what he described as “paranoiac cowardice”.

Lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, who spent almost seven years in captivity was handed by the drugs funded group to a humanitarian delegation headed by Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba with Brazilian logistic support. The solicitor said that his fellow prisoners were murdered by FARC members during a "friendly fire" incident when guerrillas from another column marched into the camp where they were being held without warning or previous coordination. "It was a war crime, mere cowardice, paranoia, because rebels have strict orders that if they are about to loose their trophy (hostages) they must murder them, because loosing them is considered an act of cowardice", said Lopez in Cali on his return from the jungle in Red Cross helicopters supplied by Brazil with Brazilian pilots. Lopez is the only survivor of twelve lawmakers that were kidnapped in April 2002 by FARC in Cali, when a guerrilla commando, acting and dressed as a Colombian Army and Police unit, ordered the evacuation of the provincial Congress building in Cali on the excuse of a bomb threat. The politicians were killed June 18, 2007 and at the time FARC blamed the Colombian Army alleging a failed attempt to release them. Colombian president Alvaro Uribe denied the charges from the first moment and accused the guerrillas of the murders. Lopez confirmed there was no combat or rescue attempt from the Colombian forces and he survived simply because he had been isolated from the rest of the group, although in the same camp, for discussing with one of the rebel leaders. "I'm alive because I was lucky, because God exists; I was isolated to be punished and be chained for the rest of the year", said Lopez. The former member of the regional congress said he was not aware of the killing of his peers because when the two guerrilla columns began fighting he ducked to the floor and imagined the other eleven hostages had been spared. However he later heard on the radio of the killings and asked a guerrilla to check the news with the commander. "I've been told to tell you that what you've heard is true?it was my greatest depression while in the jungle as a prisoner". A guerrilla solider later told him that when two shots were fired and answered the word went out that it was an Army patrol and "the commander ordered the hostages shot, and let's get out as fast as possible". The remains of the killed lawmakers were later unearthed by the Colombian Army and all of them had been shot at short range in the back and head with AK 47, the guerrillas' standard assault rifle. Following the killings of his friends, Lopez said he avoided speaking with his captors, and in spite of such painful experience, he has left aside hate and rancour, and called on President Uribe to strike a deal with the guerrillas to liberate as many hostages as possible. Lopez finally said that his liberation and that of former governor Alan Jara on Monday and three policemen and a soldier last Sunday "was a political action, propaganda from the guerrillas to try and recover standing before Colombian public opinion". But what they did was "a war crime, they should have never taken the lives of my friends, they were people who believed in and loved life, and they killed them in a most vile merciless way". Meanwhile the Colombian media reported that President Uribe was on the phone Thursday to thank his Brazilian counterpart Lula da Silva for his help and support in the liberation of the FARC hostages. The communication followed the release of the sixth hostage, Sigifredo Lopez, as had been agreed by the Red Cross and Senator Cordoba with FARC. Brazil collaborated with the two helicopters and a team of twelve military, pilots, mechanics and paramedics for the humanitarian mission. President Uribe is scheduled to visit Brazil and meet Lula da Silva next February 17th.