Capítulo 40: Diana Turbay:-
Diana Turbay the daughter of a former Colombian president - was a brunette with kind eyes and a magnetic personality. In August 1990, she was invited to interview a priest leading a guerrilla group called the Army of National Liberation. Due to the risks involved, her friends and family advised her against it. But Diana was not the type to shrink from danger if she thought that good could be achieved. She'd once travelled into guerrilla territory on a mule, hoping to gain an understanding of their motivations. She'd visited a camp to meet the leader of the M-19- who'd fired a rocket that had almost hit the room containing her father when he was president in the hope of helping the peace process along. Now if interviewing the priest would make things safer for Colombia, she'd gladly risk her life.
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On August 30, an old van arrived in Bogotá to take Diana and her crew to the priest. The two young men and a woman who emerged said they were part of the guerrilla leadership. West of Bogotá, they switched from the van to two other vehicles. After eating at a tavern, they traversed a dangerous road in heavy rain, and had to stop at dawn until a landslide was cleared.
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After a sleepless night, they met up with a patrol with five horses at 11 am. For four hours, Diana rode on a horse, while most of the group walked through mountain forest and a valley with houses nestled into coffee groves. Recognising Diana from the TV, some of the locals yelled greetings. In the
evening, they arrived at a deserted ranch near a highway, beyond which was Medellín. A young man claimed to be with the guerrillas, but offered no more information. Perplexed as to why they weren't in guerrilla territory yet, they consoled themselves with the notion that the priest wanted to meet them in the unlike-liest of places as a security precaution.
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After two hours, they stopped in Copacabana, at a small house with white walls, its roof tiles green from moss. Diana and a female companion were given the best room at the back. As its windows were boarded over, a light was kept on in the room. The guards didn't have the usual guerrilla weapons. One was even wearing a Rolex.
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Three hours later, a masked man greeted them on behalf of the priest. He said that for security the women should travel to the priest first. Getting split from her male colleagues troubled Diana. One of them whispered that she shouldn't go anywhere without them. With fright in her eyes, she gave him her ID.
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Before sunrise, the women were moved to a bigger house. Her male companions arrived on September 10. Diana confided that she was depressed over having led them all into what she now suspected was a trap. She said that she didn't fear for herself, but if anything happened to her colleagues, she wouldn't find any peace. Throughout the night, she was kept awake by thoughts of what her husband, children and parents were going through. The next night, Diana and two female colleagues were forced to trek along a path in the rain.
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Diana's distressed parents asked the government to locate her through their channels of communication with the guerrilla groups. Seven of the groups denied any knowledge of her in a joint statement.
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A guard finally came clean: "You're being held by the Extraditables. But don't worry because you're going to see something you won't forget."
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On October 30, sixty-one days after Diana's kidnapping, the Extraditables announced: "We acknowledge publicly that we are holding the missing journalists."
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Particularly concerned about a colleague with a heart ailment, Diana entered his room. He'd recently been in hospital and had opposed the trip.
"Don't you hate me for not listening to you?" Diana said, her eyes filling with tears.
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"Yes, I hated you with all my soul when we were told that we are in the hands of the Extraditables, but I've come to accept captivity as an unavoidable fate." He felt guilty for not talking her out of the excursion.
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Diana and her colleagues were moved numerous times to houses with different guards and conditions. The women were mostly housed separately from their male companions. At any time, they could be uprooted from one house to another due to the volatile nature of the kidnapping business; for instance when the authorities entered the neighbourhood where they were being held. They often found themselves rushed along muddy paths, going up and down hills in the rain. Sometimes they were moved around Medellín by taxis, whose drivers skilfully avoided checkpoints and police patrols.
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In the houses, plates, glasses and sheets were generally unwashed. Toilets could only be flushed a limited amount of times each day. Guards urinated in the sinks and showers, and slept in padlocked rooms, as if they too were prisoners. Every so often, hooded bosses showed up to instruct their underlings and take reports. The mood the boss was in set the tone for the house.
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Breakfast was usually a corn cake with a sausage and coffee. Lunch was beans in grey water, shreds of meat in a grease-like slop, little rice and a soda. Cutlery was banned except for spoons. With no chairs, the captives dined on their mattresses. In the evening, they ate anything remaining from lunch. Vigilant for any updates on their disappearance, they passed time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading newspapers.
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The man delegated to oversee Diana's kidnapping was don Pacho, a thirty-something who brought gifts, books, sweets, music cassettes and occasionally hope during his rare appearances. His underlings didn't wear hoods and went by comic-book names.
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Some of the guards armed with machine guns were teenagers. Displaced from the countryside, many had ended up in the slums of Medellin, where they
had learned to kill. They wore T-shirts, sneakers and cut-off shorts. Starting a new shift, two would arrive at 6 am. They were supposed to alternate their sleep, but sometimes they drifted off together. A fifteen-year-old boasted about how many police he'd killed after Pablo had put a bounty on the police force, offering two million pesos for each killing. In response, the police were snatching young people off the street to torture and murder. Resigned to dying young, they consoled themselves by buying motor-bikes and new clothes, and being able to send money to their mothers. They hated authority and the lives they'd been born into. They viewed crime as the only ladder up in a cruel world.
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Attempting to steady their nerves, the young guards smoked marijuana at nights or drank beer laced with a tranquilliser called Rohypnol. They played with their guns and sometimes fired them by accident. One bullet went through a door and hit another guard in the knee. When the radio announced that Pope John Paul II wanted the hostages to be freed, a guard called the Pope "a nosy son of a bitch," which provoked a near shootout among the guards. Many of them prayed daily to Jesus and Mary, and asked for protection, forgiveness and success in their criminal endeavours.
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Diana was unsettled by the guards bragging about sexually assaulting strangers, and their perverse and sadistic tendencies. Occasionally, they watched movies with extreme violence and pornography, which created tension with the hostages, especially when they needed to use the toilet. Guards insisted on leaving the toilet door partially open. Sometimes they caught the guards peeping at them.
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Initially, the guards stressed Diana out by strolling around in their underwear and blasting music, which prevented her from sleeping. Over time, she convinced them to dress properly and to lower the music. When one tried to sleep next to her, she had him leave the room. With the guards, she sometimes played Parcheesi: an Indian cross and circle board game. She helped the guards make shopping lists. They boasted that there was no shortage of money, and they could satisfy any request within twelve hours.
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The hostages sometimes found comfort in messages brought from couriers who travelled from house to house. They delivered newspapers, toiletries and sweat-suits, which the hostages were required to wear.
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At night, Diana and her friend, Azucena, who
worked on Diana's newscast, sought solace from each other. They discussed the news and politics, which helped distract them from their situation. They photographed each other in bed and tried to sleep until lunch arrived. They spent most of the time in a house belonging to a cartel boss, which was far more spacious than the other houses. They had a table to eat at. They listened to CDs.
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