News of a Kidnapping Read online

  Hernando Santos's friendship with former President Turbay, which had always had its foundation in politics, now became personal and very close. They could spend hours sitting across from each other in absolute silence. Not a day went by that they did not speak on the phone, exchanging their intimate thoughts, secret assumptions, new information. They even devised a code for handling confidential matters.

  It could not have been easy. Hernando Santos is a man with extraordinary responsibilities: With a single word he could save or destroy a life. He is emotional and raw-nerved, and has a tribal sense of family that weighs heavily in his decisions. Those who accompanied him during his son's captivity were afraid he would not survive the blow. He did not eat, or sleep through the night, he always kept a telephone within reach and grabbed at it on the first ring. During those months of grief, he socialized very little, received psychiatric counseling to help him endure his son's death, which he viewed as inevitable, and lived in seclusion, in his office or rooms, looking at his brilliant collection of stamps, and letters scorched in airplane accidents. Elena Calderon, his wife and the mother of his seven children, had died seven years earlier, and he was truly alone. His heart and vision problems grew worse, and he made no effort to hold back his tears. His exemplary virtue in these dramatic circumstances was keeping the newspaper separate from his personal tragedy.

  One of his essential supports in that bitter period was the strength of his daughter-in-law Maria Victoria. Her memory of the days following the abduction was of her house invaded by relatives and her husband's friends who stretched out on the carpets and drank whiskey and coffee until the small hours of the morning. They always said the same thing, while the impact of the abduction, the very image of the victim, grew fainter. When Hernando came back from Italy, he went straight to Maria Victoria's house and greeted her with so much emotion that she broke down, but when he had anything confidential to say about the kidnapping, he asked her to leave him alone with the men. Maria Victoria, who has a strong character and mature intelligence, realized she had always been a marginal figure in a male-dominated family. She cried for an entire day, but in the end she was fortified by the determination to have her own identity and place in her own house. Hernando not only understood her reasoning but reproached himself for his own thoughtlessness, and he found in her the greatest support in his sorrow. From then on they maintained an invincible intimacy, whether face-to-face, or on the telephone, or in writing, or through an intermediary, and even by telepathy: In the most intricate family meetings they only needed to exchange glances to know what the other was thinking, and what they should say. She had some very good ideas, among them to publish editorial notes in the paper--making no effort to conceal their purpose--to let Pacho know about events in the life of the family.

  The least-remembered victims were Liliana Rojas Arias, the wife of the cameraman Orlando Acevedo, and Martha Lupe Rojas, Richard Becerra's mother. Though they were not close friends, or relatives--despite their last names--the abduction made them inseparable. "Not so much because of our pain," Liliana has said, "but to keep each other company."

  Liliana was nursing Erick Yesid, her eighteen-month-old son, when "Cripton" called to tell her that Diana Turbay's entire crew had been abducted. She was twenty-four years old, had been married for three, and lived on the second floor of her in-laws' house in the San Andres district in southern Bogota. "She's such a happy girl," a friend has said, "she didn't deserve such ugly news." And imaginative as well as happy, because when she recovered from the initial blow she sat the child in front of the television set during the news programs so that he could see his daddy, and continued to do this without fail until his release.

  Both she and Martha Lupe were informed by the people at the news program that they would continue to provide them with money, and when Liliana's son became sick, they took care of the expenses. Nydia Quintero, Diana's mother, also called the two women to try to imbue them with a serenity she herself never had. She promised that all the efforts she made with the government would be not only for her daughter but also for the entire crew, and that she would pass on any information she received about the hostages. And she did.

  Martha Lupe lived with her two daughters, who were then fourteen and eleven years old, and was supported by Richard. When he left with Diana's team, he said it would be a three-day trip, so that after the first week she began to feel uneasy. She does not believe it was a premonition, she has said, but the fact is that she called the news program over and over again until they told her that something strange had happened. A little while later it was announced that the crew had been abducted. From then on she played the radio all day, waiting for them to be returned, and called the show whenever her heart told her to. She was troubled by the thought that her son was the most vulnerable of the hostages. "But all I could do was cry and pray," she says. Nydia Quintero convinced her there were many other things she could do for their release. She invited her to civic and religious meetings and filled her with her own fighting spirit. Liliana had a similar feeling about Orlando, and this caught her in a dilemma: He might be the last one executed because he was the least valuable, or the first because his death would provoke the same public outcry but with fewer serious consequences for the kidnappers. This idea made her burst into uncontrollable weeping, and continued to do so throughout his entire captivity. "Every night after I put the baby to bed, I would sit on the terrace and cry, watching the door so I would see him come in," she has said. "And that is what I did, night after night, until I saw him again."

  In mid-october Dr. Turbay called Hernando Santos with a message worded in their personal code. "I have some very good newspapers if you're interested in bullfighting. I'll send them to you if you like." Hernando understood this to mean an important development concerning the hostages. In fact, it was a cassette sent to Dr. Turbay's house and postmarked Monteria, the evidence that Diana and her companions were still alive, which the family had asked for over and over again during the past few weeks. The voice was unmistakable: "Daddy, it's difficult to send you a message under these conditions, but after our many requests they've allowed us to do it." Only one sentence gave any clues to possible future actions: "We watch and listen to the news constantly."

  Dr. Turbay decided to show the message to the president, and find out at the same time if there were new developments. Gaviria received Turbay and Santos as his workday was ending, as always in his private library, and he was relaxed and more talkative than usual. He closed the door, poured the whiskey, and allowed himself a few political confidences. The capitulation process seemed to have run aground because of the Extraditables' obstinacy, and the president was prepared to get it back in the water by appending certain legal clarifications to the original decree. He had worked on this all afternoon and was confident it would be resolved that same night. Tomorrow, he promised, he would have good news for them.

  They returned the next day, as arranged, and found him transformed into a wary, morose man whose first words set the tone for a conversation without hope. "This is a very difficult moment," Gaviria said. "I've wanted to help you, and I have been helping within the limits of the possible, but pretty soon I won't be able to do anything at all." It was obvious that something fundamental in his spirit had changed. Turbay sensed it right away, and before ten minutes had passed he rose from his chair with solemn composure. "Mr. President," he said without a trace of resentment, "you are proceeding as you must, and we must act as the fathers of our children. I understand, and ask you not do anything that might create a problem for you as head of state." As he concluded he pointed at the presidential chair.

  "If I were sitting there, I would do the same."

  Gaviria stood, pale as death, and walked with them to the elevator. An aide rode down with them and opened the door of the car waiting for them in the courtyard of the private residence. Neither of them spoke until they had driven out into the melancholy rain of an October evening. The noisy traffic on t
he avenue sounded muffled through bulletproof windows.

  "We shouldn't expect anything else from him," Turbay said with a sigh after a long, thoughtful silence. "Something happened between last night and today, and he can't say what it is."

  This dramatic meeting with the president was the reason dona Nydia Quintero moved to the foreground. She had been married to former president Turbay Ayala, her uncle, and the father of her four children, the eldest of whom was Diana. Seven years before the abduction, her marriage to Turbay had been annulled by the Holy See; her second husband was Gustavo Balcazar Monzon, a Liberal parliamentarian. She had been first lady and knew the limits protocol placed on a former president, above all in his dealings with a successor. "The only thing he could have done," Nydia had said, "was try to make President Gaviria see his obligation and his responsibilities." And that was what she attempted, though she had few illusions.

  Her public activity, even before the official announcement of the abduction, reached staggering proportions. She had planned the appearance of groups of children on radio and television newscasts all over the country to read a plea for the release of the hostages. On October 19, the "Day of National Reconciliation," she had arranged for simultaneous noon masses in various cities and towns to pray for goodwill among Colombians. In Bogota, while crowds waving white handkerchiefs gathered in many neighborhoods to demonstrate for peace, the ceremony took place on the Plaza de Bolivar, where a torch was lit, the flame to burn until the safe return of the captives. Through her efforts, television newscasts began each program with photographs of all the hostages, kept a tally of the days they had been held captive, and removed the corresponding picture as each prisoner was freed. It was also on her initiative that soccer matches throughout the country opened with a call for the release of the hostages. Maribel Gutierrez, Colombia's beauty queen for 1990, began her acceptance speech with a plea for their freedom.

  Nydia attended the meetings held by the families of the other hostages, listened to the lawyers, made efforts in secret through the Colombian Solidarity Foundation, which she has presided over for twenty years, and almost always felt as if she were running in circles around nothing. It was too much for her resolute, impassioned nature, her almost clairvoyant sensitivity. She waited for results of other people's efforts until she realized they had reached an impasse. Not even men as influential as Turbay and Hernando Santos could pressure the president into negotiating with the kidnappers. This certainty seemed absolute when Dr. Turbay told her about the failure of his last meeting with the president. Then Nydia decided to act on her own and opened a freewheeling second front to try to obtain her daughter's freedom by the most straightforward route.

  It was during this time that the Colombian Solidarity Foundation received an anonymous phone call in its Medellin offices from someone who said he had firsthand information about Diana. He stated that an old friend of his on a farm near Medellin had slipped a note into his basket of vegetables, claiming that Diana was there, that the guards watched soccer games and swilled beer until they passed out, and that there was no chance they could react to a rescue attempt. To make a raid even more secure, he offered to send a sketch of the farm. The message was so convincing that Nydia traveled to Medellin to give him her answer. "I asked the informant," she has said, "not to discuss his information with anybody, and I made him see the danger to my daughter, and even to her guards, if anyone attempted a rescue."

  The news that Diana was in Medellin suggested the idea of paying a visit to Martha Nieves and Angelita Ochoa, the sisters of Jorge Luis, Fabio, and Juan David Ochoa, who had been accused of drug trafficking and racketeering and were known to be personal friends of Pablo Escobar. "I went with a fervent hope that they would help me contact Escobar," Nydia reported years later, recalling those bitter days. The Ochoa sisters told her of the abuse their families had suffered at the hands of the police, listened to her with interest, expressed sympathy for her situation, but also said there was nothing they could do as far as Pablo Escobar was concerned.

  Martha Nieves knew what an abduction meant. In 1981 she had been kidnapped by the M-19, who demanded an exorbitant ransom from her family. Escobar responded by creating a brutal gang called the MAS, or Death to Kidnappers, which obtained her release after three months of bloody war with the M-19. Her sister Angelita also considered herself a victim of police violence, and both women recounted devastating stories of police abuses, raids on their homes, and countless violations of human rights.

  Nydia did not lose heart. If nothing else, she wanted them to deliver a letter for her to Escobar. She had sent one earlier through Guido Parra but had received no reply. The Ochoa sisters refused to deliver another for fear Escobar would accuse them later of creating problems for him. By the end of the visit, however, they were more responsive to Nydia's fervent pleas, and she returned to Bogota certain that a door had been opened that could lead in two different directions: one toward the release of her daughter, the other toward the peaceful surrender of the three Ochoa brothers. This made it seem appropriate to tell the president in person about her visit.

  He saw her without delay. Nydia came right to the point, recounting the Ochoa sisters' complaints about the actions of the police. The president let her speak, asking only a few pertinent questions. His obvious intention was to give less weight to the accusations than she did. As for her own situation, Nydia wanted three things: the release of the hostages, the assertion of presidential authority to prevent a rescue attempt that could have calamitous results, and the extension of the time limit for the surrender of the Extraditables. The only assurance the president gave her was that no rescue of Diana or any other hostage would be attempted without authorization from their families.

  "That's our policy," he said.

  Even so, Nydia wondered if the president had taken sufficient precautions against someone making the attempt without authorization.

  In less than a month, Nydia returned for more talks with the Ochoa sisters at the home of a mutual friend. She also visited one of Pablo Escobar's sisters-in-law, who spoke to her at length of the brutality she and her family had suffered at the hands of the police. Nydia brought her a letter for Escobar: two and a half full-size sheets covered almost completely by her ornate hand and written with an expressive precision achieved after many drafts. Her purpose was to touch Escobar's heart. She began by saying that she was not writing to the fighter capable of doing anything to achieve his ends, but to Pablo the man, "a feeling man who loves his mother and would give his life for her, who has a wife and young, innocent, defenseless children whom he wishes to protect." She understood that Escobar had abducted the journalists as a means of calling public attention to his cause, but in her opinion he had already succeeded. And so--the letter concluded--"show the world the human being you are, and in a great, humanitarian act that everyone will understand, return the hostages to us."

  Escobar's sister-in-law seemed truly moved as she read it. "You can be absolutely sure this letter will touch him," she said as if to herself. "Everything you're doing touches him, and that can only work in your daughter's favor." Then she refolded the letter, put it in the envelope, and sealed it herself.

  "Don't worry," she told Nydia with evident sincerity. "Pablo will have the letter today."

  Nydia returned to Bogota that night, hopeful about the effect the letter would have and determined to ask the president for what Dr. Turbay had not dared to request: a halt in police operations while the release of the hostages was being negotiated. She did so, and Gaviria told her straight out he could not give that order. "It was one thing for us to offer an alternative judicial policy," he said later. "But suspending operations would not have meant freedom for the hostages but only that we had stopped hunting down Escobar."

  Nydia felt she was in the presence of a man of stone who cared nothing for her daughter's life. She had to control her rage as the president explained that law enforcement was not a negotiable subject, that the police did not
have to ask permission to act, that he could not order them not to act within the limits of the law. The visit was a disaster.

  After their failed efforts with the president, Turbay and Santos decided to try other avenues, and they could think of none better than the Notables. The group was composed of two former presidents, Alfonso Lopez Michelsen and Misael Pastrana; the parliamentarian Diego Montana Cuellar; and Cardinal Mario Revollo Bravo, archbishop of Bogota. In October the families of the hostages met with them at the home of Hernando Santos. They began by recounting their conversations with President Gaviria. The only part that interested Lopez Michelsen was the possibility of amending the decree with judicial specifications, which might create new openings for the capitulation policy. "We have to get a foot in the door," he said. Pastrana favored formulas that would pressure the drug dealers into surrender. But using what weapons? Hernando Santos reminded Montana Cuellar that he could mobilize the guerrilla forces.

  After a long, informed discussion, Lopez Michelsen reached the first conclusion. "Let's play the Extraditables' game," he said. And he proposed writing a public letter announcing that the Notables were now spokesmen for the families of the hostages. The unanimous decision was that Lopez Michelsen would write the letter.

  Two days later the first draft was read to a second gathering attended by Guido Parra and another of Escobar's lawyers. This document articulated for the first time the thesis that drug trafficking could be considered a collective, sui generis crime, which meant that the negotiation could move in unprecedented directions. Guido Parra was startled.