Forbidden to talk to his rebel captors, a Colombian lawmaker who escaped after eight years as a hostage said on Monday he taught imaginary classes using sticks as his students to keep his sanity in the jungle. Oscar Tulio Lizcano, 63, escaped through the jungles, marching for three days with his FARC jailer before reaching an army post on Sunday where the guerrilla surrendered to troops.
His escape is the latest blow to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has lost three top commanders this year as President Alvaro Uribe's US-backed military campaign drives rebels deeper into remote jungles. "The loneliness was terrible. They were forbidden to talk to me," Lizcano, who once taught university classes, told Caracol radio. "I put sticks in the ground... and gave them names and taught them classes, two or three hours a day in classes, imagining I was in a classroom."
He invented lessons of Spanish and social studies, according to a local newspaper. Lizcano said he was alone for most of his captivity, with only books, radio messages from family and brief talks with guerrilla bosses. Exhausted, in tattered clothes and sporting a tangled gray beard, Lizcano escaped through the jungles with a guerrilla patrol in pursuit before the two men reached a remote army outpost across a river.
The ex-congressman's flight came four months after high-profile hostages, French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, were among a group of captives freed in a surprise military operation. Lizcano said another guerrilla had once offered to flee with him but he was executed when he was discovered by guards on the outskirts of their camp.
The rebel who escaped with him, known as Isaza, has been offered asylum in France and a bounty under an agreement given by Uribe's government to deserters who flee with hostages.
The FARC, once a mighty rebel army, has been severely weakened by increasing military operations and by deserters who have provided the government with valuable intelligence on rebel positions and communications. Under pressure from the military, Lizcano said his captors were short of food and forced to eat palm hearts and jungle roots to stay alive. He said they moved daily to avoid army patrols. Despite the other rebel's execution, Isaza vowed to help the captive. "Old man, you're going to die here,... I'm going to get you out of here," Lizcano recalled he told him.
The two men fled at night and spent three days stumbling through the jungle with Lizcano weakened by fever and swollen feet. They hid in the day, and at night Isaza led the captive along the trails he knew would take them to an army outpost. "There was no alternative, die or get out," he said. "It was getting complicated with the military pressure and the hunger we faced. There was no other way."
Comments
Comments are closed.