A man dressed in black, barefoot and sitting on a plastic chair speaks in front of his kidnappers' phone camera. It is the test of survival. He says he is fine and asks the family to get the money his captors are asking for to buy his freedom, so they have to go to Mandrake. Heriberto Urbina is 86 years old and has been suffering his third kidnapping since last April. The family fears for his health. The phenomenon of kidnapping has never ceased to occur in Colombia and in the last year it has doubled.
Heriberto has dedicated his entire life to livestock. Until the day of the kidnapping, at his age, he worked on the farm from dawn to dusk. I was buying fuel in Curumaní, in the northern department of Cesar, and suddenly several motorcycles appeared: three armed men got out and went to the vehicle transporting Urbina and pointed guns at it. He thought it was a robbery and descended without resistance. With threats, they put him in the back; Two men pointed at him, one on each side. The vehicle started along the distressing road, without any authority noticing. Followed by the three motorcycles, they entered the mountains of the Serranía del Perijá and, already in the mountain range, they stopped, incinerated the car and continued the journey on the motorcycles. The family contacted the military authorities and, that same night, they flew over the sector with Tucano planes; The next day they used a helicopter, but the area is so vast that they saw no traces.
April 24 was the beginning of a tortuous transit, not only for Urbina, but for his family. The biggest concern is that your already deteriorating health may be aggravated by the pre-existing conditions that afflict you. "The anguish is that these gentlemen have kidnapped a person whose days are numbered," says one of his relatives. Under intimidation, the kidnappers demand a sum of money that the family does not have: "They are going to die and it will be your fault," they say threateningly. Although the captors have identified themselves as the Clan del Golfo, the community points to the ELN as the perpetrator of the kidnapping; The guerrillas have not yet made a statement. Members of the Gulf Clan unofficially deny that he was kidnapped.
In 1997, Urbina had suffered the first kidnapping by the ELN guerrillas: he lasted in captivity nine months and 21 days. A year later, he was intercepted by FARC men on a miraculous catch, a name for illegal roadblocks. The kidnapping was also extortive and could last from hours to days.
The most recent statistics from the Ministry of Defense show that between January and March 2022 they kidnapped 35 people, while in the same period of 2023 it was double: 71. That figure does not include Urbina's kidnapping, because it happened in April. The same report indicates that in all of 2021 160 were perpetrated and in the following year there were 222, which means an increase of more than 38%.
There are kidnappings for political purposes, such as the recent case of police officer Dayan Edmundo Poto — which was attributed to him by the ELN — and others for extortion purposes, such as that of Heriberto Urbina. Both modalities have increased in the last two years. The government and the ELN maintain a peace negotiation table, without having reached a bilateral ceasefire. According to Luis Trejos, a professor at the Universidad del Norte and a specialist in violence and peace, political kidnappings are taking place for control of territories and tend to extend for short periods; while extortionate are longer and quieter.
At its worst, Colombia reported up to 3,500 kidnappings a year. With the extortion, the guerrillas and paramilitaries sought financing to grow militarily. The FARC were responsible for 33% of the kidnappings, according to a report by the National Center for Historical Memory. Kidnapping not only implies the loss of freedom, but "daily coexistence with death, confinement in undignified conditions, breaks in autonomy, the elimination of intimacy, rupture with loved ones, abandonment of one's own projects, feelings of uncertainty, loneliness, fear and hopelessness," says the final report of the Truth Commission. which found that during the armed conflict there were around 80,000 victims of this crime.
With the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC, kidnappings, and all forms of violence in general, were substantially reduced. Cesar is one of the departments where this phenomenon occurs the most. In the area where Heriberto was kidnapped, the Clan del Golfo, the ELN guerrillas and the dissidents of the former FARC are present. The Office of the Ombudsman has established informal security and private surveillance mechanisms at the service of sectors associated with the latifundio.
Urbina's family has not been able to reach an agreement with the kidnappers because the amount they demand is exorbitant, exceeding the value of the assets they possess. With the terror generated by that fact, no one wants to buy land, or invest in the countryside, or buy livestock, residents of the region have said. Carlos Camargo, the ombudsman, said he is concerned about the kidnapping because of its characteristics, such as the age and health status of the victim. "The kidnapping is a consequence of the continuity of the armed conflict in the regions, where clashes and the violation of the human rights of the civilian population continue," Camargo said.
Why have kidnappings skyrocketed?
The overproduction of coca leaf in Colombia stopped its sale on the black market, unleashed a crisis of misery in the growing areas and the illegal armed groups that run the business have turned to another source of income: kidnapping. This is one of Luis Trejos' hypotheses. "Drug trafficking is a chain of several links and everyone eats from that. When they stopped planting and processing coca, several links were left without income and this caused many criminal organizations that derived the bulk of their economic income from drug trafficking to resort to kidnapping," he explains.
Trejos believes that the deterioration of security that began during the Government of Iván Duque has also influenced; Hence, old criminal practices that seemed to be overcome reappeared. However, he believes that kidnapping should not be separated from extortion, another crime that has been on the rise. The expert recalls that kidnappings for extortion are occurring in territories where coca is not produced, which is why criminal groups seek other forms of financing.
Until a few days ago, Urbina was the oldest kidnapped person in the world, but cattle rancher and lawyer Sanín Mena, 87, also in Cesar, has just been kidnapped. In the municipalities of the center of that department the common denominator is silence and speaking under anonymity. "Here at seven o'clock at night there is no longer a soul on the street. What we are experiencing is terror," a social leader who preferred not to be named told EL PAÍS. In a leaflet, distributed on social networks, you can read the following threat, and it is not known from whom or where it comes from: "We started with the cleaning. Let Chiriguaná, Curumaní, Pailitas be prepared."
"We thought kidnapping was a thing of the past and oh surprise!" said a resident of Chiriguaná. Some believe that the country has regressed, that violence and war are returning to start a new cycle and there is still no place or time for peace.
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