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Colombian senator and peace activist Piedad Cordoba has been banned from public office for 18 years for “collaborating” with the FARC rebels. Senator Cordoba helped negotiate the release of several FARC hostages two years ago. But the inspector-general’s office said there was clear evidence she had exceeded her role as a mediator by giving the rebels political advice. Senator Cordoba says she is innocent and is preparing her response. From Bogota, John Otis reports. (Photo:Ricardo Bello) Download MP3
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LISA MULLINS: Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba was nominated last year for a Nobel Peace Prize. That was for her work to help obtain the release of hostages held by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Well, now Senator Cordoba is in trouble. Colombian investigators claim that she went too far in her dealings with the FARC, and turned into an active supporter of the guerrilla group. From Bogota, John Otis reports.
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JOHN OTIS: A guerrilla commander turns over four hostages in a jungle ceremony broadcast on Colombian TV. After seven years in captivity, the prisoners were finally released in 2008 thanks in part to Piedad Cordoba, a left-wing senator and longtime peace activist. Cordoba, along with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, served for several months as an official mediator between the Colombian government and the guerrillas, who wanted to trade their prisoners for captured rebels. Cordoba helped persuade the guerrillas to unilaterally release more than a dozen hostages. One of them was Colombian politician Luis Eladio Perez.
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OTIS: “We might have died in captivity,” Perez says. “What’s certain is that Cordoba and Chavez quickly secured our freedom after seven years in the jungle.” But now, Cordoba is the one in trouble. Late last month, Colombia’s Inspector General, Alejandro Ordonez, declared Cordoba had gone far beyond her role as a go-between.
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OTIS: Ordonez said intercepted phone calls and e-mail messages between Cordoba and the FARC, indicate she collaborated with the guerrillas and advised them to take a tougher stand with the government. For example, Ordonez claimed Cordoba told the rebels not to turn over proof-of-life videos of the hostages and urged them to delay the release of the FARC’s most famous prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt.
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OTIS: At a news conference, Cordoba said the liberation of so many hostages proves her work was strictly humanitarian. She also denied she is Teodora Bolivar, the alias she’s alleged to have used in the compromising e-mails with FARC commanders.
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PIEDAD CORDOBA: I am Piedad Cordoba Ruiz. I’m a pacifist and a feminist. I am not Teodora Bolivar.
OTIS: Cordoba is among a growing list of Colombian peace activists, journalists and free-lance negotiators that the government’s accused of cozying up to the guerrillas. Government critics point out that in order to gain access to and make progress with hardline FARC commanders, people have to approach them in a friendly way.
DANIEL GARCIA-PENA: My conversations with FARC were always very, very tough.
OTIS: That’s Daniel Garcia-Pena, a former Colombian government negotiator.
GARCIA-PENA: What I found were very arrogant, very close-minded, very hard-to-deal-with individuals.
OTIS: James Jones, an American development consultant, agrees. Three years ago, Jones met with the guerrillas in a secret effort to liberate three US military contractors held by the FARC. He did everything he could to break the ice.
JAMES JONES: We talked into the wee hours drinking rum and smoking Cuban cigars and even tears would come to our eyes.
OTIS: Jones was later investigated by Colombian authorities and the FBI but was cleared of wrong-doing. A decade ago, there was broad support for peace negotiations with the guerrillas. Now, the Colombian army is winning the war, the FARC has been branded as a terrorist organization, and people like Piedad Cordoba are wrongly viewed as rebels in disguise, according to Garcia-Pena.
GARCIA-PENA: Piedad may have certain ideological affinity with the FARC, but something completely different is to support the FARC, to fund the FARC, to organize terrorist acts, which I am positive that Piedad has never done.
OTIS: But Cordoba is also being investigated by Colombia’s Supreme Court and legal experts, who have examined the evidence, say there’s little doubt she wrote the controversial e-mails to the guerrillas. Inspector General Ordonez, who can dismiss government officials for wrong-doing, said the case against Cordoba is strong. So is the punishment. Ordonez stripped Cordoba of her post in the senate and barred her from holding public office for 18 years. For The World, I’m John Otis in Bogota.
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