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FARC liberate another soldier

By Manuel Rueda, Editorial Director

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Sargeant Pablo Emilio Moncayo has been reunited with his family after spending almost twelve years as a hostage of the FARC guerrillas.

Moncayo was kidnapped in December 1998, during a FARC operation against a military base on Patascoy mountain in southwest Colombia.

He was 19 years old when he was captured by the guerrillas, and his twelve years in captivity turned him into the hostage who has spent the most time in the guerrillas’ remote jungle camps.

Moncayo’s plight was always known amongst politicians and relatives of Colombia’s hostages, but the soldier only gained national and international recognition in 2007 when his father decided to march across half of Colombia in order to demand his son’s liberation.

Schoolteacher Gustavo Moncayo, who was later nicknamed “the marcher of peace”, raised awareness about the plight of Pablo Emilio and the rest of Colombia’s hostages and was able to secure a meeting with President Alvaro Uribe in Bogota in 2007 after marching more than 1,000 kilometers from his hometown in the State of Narino with symbolic chains linked to his arms and feet.

After the unprecedented march, Gustavo Moncayo became one of Colombia’s most well known anti-kidnapping activists and a relentless advocate for a humanitarian exchange that would involve a trade-off of FARC hostages for guerrillas currently held in Colombian prisons.

Upon being liberated, Gustavo Moncayo thanked God and his father for their “titanic and unrelenting efforts” to secure his liberation, adding that the mediation efforts of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa were crucial for his liberation.

The FARC guerrillas had announced Moncayo’s liberation in April of 2009 following talks with Senator Piedad Cordoba and a group of politicians and intellectuals that goes by the name “Colombians for Peace”.

But disagreements over the security conditions for Moncayo’s hand-off delayed the sergeant’s liberation for more than 11 months.

Moncayo, who was merely a teenager when he was captured by the guerrillas, returned to freedom a grown man, looking tired but in good physical condition, saying that he was surprised by “the technological advances” he has seen so far.

He was dropped off by a Brazilian helicopter at the Villavicencio airport where he was greeted by his family and dozens of journalists.

Among the family members welcoming Sargeant Moncayo was a five year old sister who was born during his time in captivity and two small nephews who he had never seen.