FRANCE 24 Exclusive - COLOMBIA - FARC

'I don't know why they handed him over to me'

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

FRANCE 24 Bogota correspondents met the farmer who was asked to look after former FARC hostage Clara Rojas' child in 2005.

In January 2005, a FARC guerrilla fighter paid Jose Crisanto Gomez Tapiero, a Colombian farmer and father of seven, a surprise visit. The FARC guerilla was holding an ailing baby boy. “I didn’t know what to think,” Tapiero told FRANCE 24 correspondents in Bogota. “I had no idea who he was.”

The baby turned out to be the son of former FARC hostage, Clara Rojas, who was an aide to French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt before she was captured in 2002. The issue of an allegedly consensual relationship between Rojas and one of her captors, the boy was named Emmanuel at birth. He was later renamed 'Juan David'. 

A few months later, Tapiero took Emmanuel to hospital. “I knew that if I didn't get the child to a doctor, he would have died,” he said. There, the child was taken away from him. For two years, he told the FARC he had sent the child to live with his sister in Bogota. “What struck me is that they seemed to want to get rid of the child as if they didn’t care about him at all,” he said.

Last December, the FARC finally asked for the child back, threatening Tapiero who then alerted the police. According to Tapiero's account, it was only after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez launched "Operation Emmanuel" that he realised the boy could be Rojas's son. "I told myself it was God's will that the boy would survive in my hands," he concluded.

Tapiero has been living in Bogota with his family under judicial protection since the beginning of January. For security reasons, he answered FRANCE 24 questions disguised in sunglasses and a cap.

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