Salud Hernandez, correspondent of a Spanish newspaper El Mundo said, “Thank you to everyone who prayed for me”, on Friday in her first interview upon being freed.
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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) National Liberation Army rebels have freed a Spanish journalist who went missing a week ago in a lawless region of Colombia, according to the Roman Catholic Church, which helped secure her release.
“I’ve always been imprudent, because a reporter needs to be imprudent or they’ll miss half the things”, Hernandez-Mora said during an improvised press conference in the city of Ocana.
“With every hour that passes the political value of these kidnappings increases because the ELN mistakenly believes they can force the government on its knees and impose negotiating conditions with a captive of such stature”, said Alejandro Reyes, a columnist for the newspaper El Espectador.
Spanish journalist Salud Hernandez and a pair of Colombian journalists were freed Friday by the ELN.
TV reporters Diego D’Pablos and Carlos Melo of Colombian channel RCN were then accosted and detained Monday while reporting on her disappearance.
Her last message to her work colleagues at the latter paper said that she would be “incommunicado for several hours in that region carrying out (her) duties as a reporter”, Villegas said. Traditionally the smaller rebel group, and said to have less than 2,000 members, there are concerns the ELN has begun to attract members of the FARC not interested in being part of the peace process.
He said that in a country that “today moves toward building a stable and lasting peace, it is unacceptable to continue these types of attacks against society”, according to Semana.
The ELN is estimated to have about 1,300 members. When she crossed paths with the rebels she was informed she was going to stay with them for a couple days and said she knew right away that she was being taken hostage.
On Wednesday, President Juan Manuel Santos held out the possibility that Henandez-Mora might have chosen to report from inside of a rebel camp and simply hadn’t returned.
An extensive search led by the army has produced few leads on the missing journalists.
“Such a tactic has recent precedent in Colombia with the FARC’s November 2014 abduction of Army General Rubén Darío Alzate Mora, apparently in response to the Colombian government’s refusal to negotiate a bilateral ceasefire”.
Both groups are negotiating a peace agreement with the Colombian government, with Cuba mediating.
The ELN has recently agreed to enter peace talks with the government, following the example of the Farc.
The Jamaica-sized region of northeastern Colombia is among the country’s poorest, most marginalized backwaters.
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Norte de Santander is a hub for cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and for the smuggling of goods from neighboring Venezuela.
