El País: Kidnapping Returns as National Trauma
Kidnapping in Colombia: The return of the great national trauma.
The ELN guerrilla organization refuses to renounce a practice that has affected more than 50,000 victims in recent decades.
Luis Eladio Pérez spent almost seven years as a hostage in the jungles of Colombia, held by FARC guerrillas from 2001 to 2008. In Infierno Verde (Green Hell), the book he published after his release, he confesses that he contemplated taking his own life. At various times during his prolonged captivity, he thought he was worth more dead than alive, because the anguish of his family touched the bottom of his soul and he had taken out insurance for enough money to help them overcome such as a situation. He spent long years in chains, suffering leishmaniasis and a heart attack. “The conditions were absolutely inhumane,” and included “indescribable physical and emotional torture,” he said some time later, as a victim, in an appearance before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP)...