I am about starting to tremble like a straw. At least two times I wrote an email to the FARC asking for an interview. The first time with Ingrid Betancourt. A Dutch magazine thought in its ignorance that it should be possible to do it. To please them I sent the mail. Of course I never got an answer.
The second time was comparable to the first. I requested an interview with our Dutch guerrilla girl Tanja Nijmeijer. To please the FARC and increase my chances I wrote that I also would like to speak with her commander, to get to know the FARC better. They weren’t impressed and never answered.
BUT I AM ON A GUERRILLA LAPTOP.
Now it occurred to the Colombian General Prosecutor to investigate 55 persons of public universities who appeared in FARC-laptops. In order to find them functionaries of the investigative police DIJIN asked the database of four universities and the institute for vocational training SENA in order to look for persons who are linked to the guerrilla.
Earlier a number of politicians and journalists were indicted for their alleged ‘FARC-politics’.
As a European I immediately think of the creepy control of a Hitler or Stalin regime and ‘the knock on the door’ and a guy with a cruel face, which is partly hidden by a dark hat, with a big leather coat and a harsh voice: ‘Mitkommen’ (‘You come with me’).
Many people, from the political left, the centre and the right, have criticized this measure, fortunately. They stated that you cannot investigate – and stigmatize! which is dangerous in this country with so many armed mad men – a huge group of people who might very well be perfectly innocent.
Fortunately –as well – the rector of the Universidad Nacional, Moisés Wasserman, came to the defense of his students. He told the press that he is going to investigate if the measure is not a violation of university autonomy and the right of privacy of the students.
But seven students already have been pointed out as cooperators of the FARC, as the newspaper El Tiempo wrote Wednesday. What kind of information would they have found about them?
Author Wies Ubags is a
Dutch freelance journalist in Bogotá and works for media in
her country.
