Pastor Alape broke down in tears after remembering the captivity of Ramiro Carranza

Julian Gallo, Pastor Alape and Rodrigo Londono, commanders of the extinct FARC, in the appearance and pardon hearings before the victims for the kidnappings perpetrated. Bogota, Colombia June 21, 2022. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

In the framework of acknowledgment of the kidnappings perpetrated by the extinct FARC, there have been cases of deep shock for the victims and those appearing. A sensitive one, as Pastor Alape was noted – accused of having perpetrated it -, was the kidnapping of the then head of immigration of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), Ramiro Carranza Coronado, who was illegally held on September 2, 2001 in the municipality of Puente Quetame in Cundinamarca, while he was on the farm he owned in the rural area of ​​that municipality.

On the second day of the reconnaissance hearings of the former FARC secretary for extortion purposes, he continued to reveal new information about the objectives that the kidnappings would have in the context of the conflict. In this way it was possible to determine that for the release of Ramiro Carranza they were asking for a sum of 600 million pesos.

“This is very powerful, because it is like looking at ourselves in a mirror. It was what we condemned, we rejected from other armed actors and today we are finding our own truth, ”said Alape at the beginning of his intervention.

In the midst of this appearance, Pastor Alape could not contain his shock at the memory of one of the kidnapping cases that most impressed him, as he said in the middle of his speech.

In a serene tone, he indicated: “I want to bring up a case that has hit me the most because he told me: Where are we going to get as an organization?” After a long pause, Pastor Alape continued, breaking into tears: “The case of the poet Carranza, the brother of María Mercedes Carranza. It’s that we got involved with art, with culture”.

It should be remembered that the kidnapping was carried out by the 53rd front of the extinct FARC in 2001. However, the official died at the beginning of 2003 when he was transferred from camp.

In 2008, alias Edgar, one of Ramiro’s jailers, told Jineth Bedoya, a journalist for El Tiempo, about the victim’s last days: “He was very ill, his fate was to die. There were days when he didn’t receive food and I think his lungs were bursting, because he had a bad cold and a bad cough. It is that in the camp where we were it was very cold and the man also had a sick soul.

The Carranza family is waiting for these hearings that are being held in the framework of case 001, which correspond to the cases of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion, to report the exact place where the remains of their relative rest, since to this day Today it is unknown where he was buried.

During the hearing and after acknowledging other kidnappings perpetrated by the former guerrilla group, Alape apologized for the scourge of the captivity of the victims who were not present at the hearing, including José Cardona, whom he once member of the secretariat guarded in his captivity: “I apologize to José Cardona who was kidnapped by the fourth front in 1983, to whom I had to pay guard,” he said.

To conclude, he referred to other kidnappings in which he had participated as a jailer or as a member of the then subversive leadership, in which they are acknowledging their participation and providing information to the victims on the circumstances in which this series of crimes took place. kidnappings.

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