John Frank Pinchao Blanco the policeman who escaped from a FARC camp has given details of the difficult conditions in which FARC hostages are held. Some hostages did not survive viral infections and illnesses, such as Major Guevara who died in the jungle and whose body, a year later, has still not been returned to his family.

Pinchao told how during the first two years of his capture (1998 and 1999) all hostages were treated by professional doctors. “I don’t know where they came from, if they were members of the guerrilla or brought t by force from some hospital. But for the last 6 years, it is the guerrilla themselves who act as nurses, with the use of medical books. Over time and from experience they used guess what was wring with us and improvise the use of medicines to treat us”.

No hostage escaped tropical diseases, viruses needing antibiotics or from a deterioration in a medical condition in existence already prior to the kidnapping. A year ago Major Julian Ernesto Guevara was the first victim due t alack of medical care in which hostage find themselves. FARC explained he had died from an “unknown disease”.

Pinchao gave details about illness suffered by each of the hostages.

Major Guevara, for example, had been ill several times” which left him almost dead”. But Corporal William Perez, an army nurse, also a hostage, had the duty of reviving him each time he fell. When Guevara died, Pinchao was not with him, but he had seen enough to conclude that “the guerrilla let his superior officer die”.

American Mark Gonsalves was suffering from hepatitis when Pinchao escaped. Tom Howes is suffering from stress, but he looks after himself by taking exercise. Senator Jorge Eduardo Gechem ha similar problems and he has been given seven “antistroke” tablets. Colonel Luis Mendota as well as Major Enrique Murillo suffers from kidney problems. Senator Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo suffers from stress. Carlos José Duarte has stomach problems. Sergeant José Murulanda has knee problems. Captain Juan Carlos Bermeo has a mysterious rash on his skin and “ looking up gives him vertigo, even fainting fits”, said Pinchao. Senator Luis Eladio Pérez keeps his diabetes at bay with sugar lumps under his tongue.

One day the guerrilla brought them magazines; among them copies from “Selections” that gave practical advice on self-healing and the effects of placebos. “It explained there that through self-healing, the body could produce a substance that gives the effect of medication. All of us, we were using this method to treat ourselves”, recalled Pinchao.

Clara and Emmanuel

As if being kidnapped, being sick, the stress caused by FARC and the danger of the forest were not enough, the tragedy of the kidnapping of Clara Rojas, Ingrid Betancourt’s colleague, is still even more severe due to FARC’s treatment of her and her son, now three years old.

According to Pinchao’s testimony, the baby was born in a house made of wooden planks with, outside, barbed wire on the walls and roof. The last time Pinchao remembers seeing the mother and child goes back two years. “When they had to move camp, she was not allowed to have the child, they would let her see him now and then but it is the guerrilla who look after the child. Clara used to be very upset and would call him at the top of her voice which would be heard from every side”, he said.

Recently, when Pinchao had a chance to talk to the American hostages, the latter told him they were resigned to waiting another four years in the forest for a humanitarian agreement because they were aware that with the current government the agreement would not happen.

“Now, I remember a shopkeeper talking about people who went to Argentina by bicycle in three months and I wondered why I could not walk and even reach the border (of Argentina)”, he announced to the press conference. He also added that FARC were not interested in a humanitarian exchange because they have always held it a priority the establishment of a demilitarised zone.

When on 16 May last, Pinchao freed himself after eight and a half years in captivity, lots of ideas went through his mind. “The first was that I would say to my captain, the one who found me, not to tell anyone, not even my mother. I wanted to offer to rescue those left behind”, the policeman said, admitting that he could not have imagined the welcome and the fuss caused by his liberation.

Although Pinchao suffers from serious malnutrition which means he is on a special diet, for the first time in nine years, he had his favourite meal in his mother’s house: chicken with rice.

This evening, due to threats already received for having escaped, he will sleep in a police station; meanwhile he is planning trips to the sea with his family.