Millions of Colombians demonstrate against kidnappings in Colombia

Jul 5, 2007, 22:03 GMT

Bogota - Several million Colombians demonstrated Thursday against kidnappings by armed rebel groups and criminal gangs, amid current estimates of more than 3,000 being held captive for ransom or political motives.

The governments of Colombia's 32 provinces and several human- rights organizations organized marches Thursday, and citizens from across the political spectrum gathered nationwide under the slogan 'Freedom Without Conditions Now.'

The massive attendance contradicted past perceptions of Colombian apathy toward protests against the persistent political and criminal violence that has plagued the country for decades.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a hardliner against the country's 40-year Marxist insurgency, led the march in Bogota. At midday in the capital, church bells rang, car horns blared and demonstrators blew whistles for more 50 minutes while forming a human chain.

Wearing a white T-shirt bearing the anti-abduction slogan, Uribe took part in a religious ceremony led by Colombia's Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Bogota cathedral.

The families of abductees denounced Uribe's tough stance in the civil war, which they believe has hindered a potential prisoner exchange of jailed rebels for some 50 politicians, soldiers and police officers held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest of Colombia's leftwing guerilla movements.

'It is very good that finally all Colombians are supporting us relatives of the kidnapped. We finally feel in company,' Yolanda Pulecio said.

Pulecio is the mother of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who has been a FARC captive for five years.

Last week, FARC said that 11 regional legislators abducted in 2002 were killed on June 18. Their bodies have not been returned to the families, and remains unclear if the hostages were executed by FARC or killed in crossfire.

Colombian singer Juanes, whose song La Camisa Negra (The Black Shirt) became a global hit, led a march in his native Medellin. He donned a white T-shirt with the words 'I have a white shirt for peace in Colombia.'

Juanes told reporters that it was 'important for the citizens to be one single voice that demands the freedom of all the kidnapped, in solidarity with the families of the 11 former legislators and with all the families who still have their relatives in the jungles.'

Colombia was paralysed at midday, as shops, the stock exchange, courts and air traffic among many institutions and forms of commerce suspended activity for a few minutes in support of the marches.

The demand for abduction victims to be freed was aimed not only at FARC rebels, but also to the leftist Army for National Liberation (ELN) and the far-right, mostly disarmed United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia (AUC), and other illicit groups that hold people against their will.

'The international community has to understand very well what is really happening here, because there really is not a very clear sense, and they see the armed groups with a romantic idea and with a philosophical weight, which perhaps they once had, but not at this moment,' Juanes said.

Most of the kidnapped in Colombia are actually abducted by simple criminals who sometimes 'sell' their victims to other organizations. A ransom is often demanded.