Former liberal Senator Piedad Cordoba temporarily left Colombia Thursday, citing threats against her life and suspicious people following her.
According to Spanish press agency EFE, Cordoba has fled the country on advice from friends and relatives in response to the threats.
Representative Ivan Cepeda explained that Cordoba “told us that she was leaving the country because the threats have intensified and that it was an imminent attempt on her life.”
Despite leaving Colombia, Cordoba explained that she will continue monitoring the peace process she recently initiated with left-wing guerrilla groups ELN and the FARC through her peace activist movement “Colombians for Peace.”
The former senator has created quite a media splash in recent weeks by initially promising to announce the FARC’s release of hostages. She ended up announcing that she sent letters to the guerrillas groups, requesting their participation in a peace process, against the will of President Juan Manuel Santos who condemns any dialogue with criminal organizations until the groups renounce kidnapping and the use of landmines.
Cordoba also recently caught the ire of Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera when she referred to the members of the security forces in FARC’s captivity as “captured.”
“They are not captured, they are not retained, they are kidnapped in humiliating, shameful conditions that violate all norms of international humanitarian law,” the minister responded to her choice of words.
Cordoba, who believes her departure from the country will be brief, explained that her daughter, Natalia Maria, also fled the country recently in response to death threats.
The former senator is highly controversial in Colombia, because of a her friendship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and alleged ties to the FARC. She was banned from Congress last year after the Inspector General considered it proven her ties to the guerrilla groups had been too close. However, the Supreme Court is still investigating these “FARC-politics” charges and has rejected the evidence used by the Inspector General’s Office on condemn Cordoba.