“I have the right.I have the right to my rights.I have the right to express myself “

I think that the truth is fundamental as part of the development of any society, history cannot be twisted. And this is my story.

I am 44 years old and since I was a child I saw how the conflict took away what we had. My family is a victim, I am a victim. They kidnapped my parents and uncle, they killed my aunt, my grandfather too. To me, the M-19He kidnapped meWhen I was 11 years old. It was 1987, I was with my father on the farm, we played parques and about 20 people arrived armed with rifles and bazookas, strong weapons. I saw how they beat my dad: they threw him and hit him so hard with a gun to the head that it opened. They threw me to the other side, they tied a rope around my neck and behind me with a mooring knot. They took me like a dog, while my kneeling dad screamed, begged please not. Between shouts they told him that he had, yes or yes, to get an amount of money, which we did not have, to pay my ransom.

They took me in a boat. They did not hit me, rape me or touch me, nor did they lock me in a grave, but I did sleep tied up and they made fun of me. I remember they used to say ugly phrases to me, which for an 11-year-old boy are not easy to assimilate. For example, they asked me “What is the name of the man over there?”, While pointing to a man with weapons, and they spoke again to say “from now until he dies, tell him dad.” I was kidnapped for eight days; once we left the boat, we walked for three days, to a very distant place. At that time I thought that my parents had been murdered, that I would never see them again. I imagined so many things.

Between my mom and my dad they had to pay 45 million pesos for my ransom; by that time it was a lot of money. It interests me that Colombian society is aware that guerrillas like the M-19 also kidnapped children like me, that we had nothing to do with the armed conflict in this country.

Now that I’m an adult, I realize that the gunmen who kidnapped me weren’t as big as I remembered them. They were also children. They were not over 16 years old, you could see them physically. At no time was an adult with me. Involving children and adolescents is the greatest scoundrel they can do. It’s a crime. When they take your child, they take your life. Forcibly taking from a child is the lowest thing they can do to a human being.

Upon returning from the kidnapping, my family decided to send me to the United States for psychological treatment. I came back fat and it was worse. Years later, when I was about to graduate from college, my dad was kidnappedthe FARC. History was repeating itself once more. It was not eight days, but five months. They took everything from my dad. At that time, in the 1990s, the kidnapped and their families had their bank accounts frozen so as not to pay the ransom. My family went out of their way to pay for it. They released him without a peso, without an office, without a home, rather, without life. To this day, I am the one who maintains it. I recently went bankrupt and it hurts not to have the means to pay my dad’s social security.

After my dad’s kidnapping, we no longer had the same lifestyle. We no longer went to the farm, we no longer went skiing, we no longer had luxuries. The reason we were kidnapped was the opulence we lived in, and that is not a crime. At school I felt humiliated by my friends, because they made fun of my father’s financial situation. My mom, on the other hand, was still a wealthy person. She sponsored me to leave the country. I went to live in Costa Rica, to get away from all this, but I didn’t like it and I decided to go to France, to study cooking.

When I was about to graduate in 2000, the FARC guerrillas again attacked my family. They kidnapped my maternal grandmother and my uncle. In 2001, my desperate mother sold everything to pay for her mother and brother’s ransom. But the armed group set a trap for them: they released my grandmother and caught my mother. They held her for six months. Upon returning from France, I found that my mother was kidnapped. They made my grandmother sell her entire estate to save her children.

In different years I had my two parents kidnapped and I experienced the martyrdom of kidnapping, both inside and outside. It is horrible to have this intrigue of not knowing what they were doing, if they were beaten, if they were feeding them or in some cases if they had escaped and were still alive.

I remember that around the time my mother was kidnapped, I asked my grandmother how she had managed to live with dignity. First, at the time of La Violencia, her husband was killed for being a liberal, despite the fact that some articles that I have kept from my grandfather say that he was “as good as bread.” Some time later they kidnapped her, and later her daughter. All my grandmother did was create a lot of jobs, and almost all of her workers ended up with a house. It is unfair that these situations happen to a person like her, who has struggled to generate wealth for her family.

Neither my grandparents nor my parents have been involved in politics or drug trafficking. I would like to know why the FARC kidnapped my entire family. It is unfair that just because we had a lot of money we had to live these situations, which we will never overcome. Things belong to the one who works, gets them and owns them, not from others who steal them at the point of kidnapping and extortion. The problem is not us; it is they who decided to take up arms. I think it will be very difficult to turn the page of what has happened to us, because when people’s feelings are taken to such extremes, the damage is irreparable.

Seven years ago I complained to the Victim Reparation Unit for my kidnapping, but they blatantly gave me to understand that I had left on my own, as if it had been a trip, so they did not include me in the registry as a victim and I have not received any kind of repair for what happened to me. Instead, my dad received 20 million for his kidnapping, but the money was only enough to pay off some debts.

Despite that repair, my father has not overcome what happened to us, because he feels that his life, his job, his assets were taken from him and the most precious thing for a father, which is his son, was kidnapped, without him having been involved in the armed conflict. Right now, my dad lives with a brother. After the kidnappings, they closed all the doors on him; He went from being a successful businessman as a car importer to having absolutely nothing. Many will say that at least he has a brother who provides him with a roof, but I think that there is no better victim than another; Regardless of our economic situation, we have all experienced this conflict in different ways.

It’s a shame for me that I can’t help my dad. I have been through many financial difficulties; Until recently I had a very successful restaurant, but I was broke by the pandemic. With great sadness, I have had to ask my mother for money for my father. She hasn’t seen him for more than 20 years. My father is a person who continues to have a lot of hatred for the armed groups, which caused him so much damage; from the time he gets up he has resentment for everything he sees and hears.

I haven’t gotten over it. If I go to a farm and hear the dogs barking a lot, I am paralyzed. I have not left Colombia because my family is here, and also why should I leave, if the people I grew up with are here? To be calm, do I have to leave Colombia? It is not easy, everything is here, my family, family reunions, and I have already lived abroad for many years and decided to return to my country.