Former Colombian vice-presidential candidate and kidnap victim Clara Rojas, has called a new film that tells the story of her son an “outrage.”
Rojas spent six years in captivity following her kidnapping by the FARC in 2002, alongside former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
The Spanish film, titled “Operation E”, intends to tell the story of Rojas’ son, Emmanuel, who was born in captivity after Rojas became pregnant by an unnamed guerrilla. The film will focus largely on a local farmer, who was given Emmanuel by the FARC when the baby got sick at the age of eight months.
Rojas was not to see her child again for another three years when she was finally released from custody, and considers that the farmer effectively kidnapped her child.
The former running mate for the political campaign of Betancourt claims that, “They want to tell a story about the farmer, Jose Cristano Gomez, the person that, according to the information that I have, kidnapped my son before he was given back to me by Bienestar Familiar. Despite wanting to make a movie based on a true story, they haven’t consulted me and it doesn’t seem that they have consulted the documents at Bienestar Familiar.”
Rojas is concerned that the film will distort her son’s perception of the truth regarding his birth in captivity and his subsequent kidnapping by portraying the farmer in a positive light.
The former kidnapping victim claims to have found out about the film from the media, and says that if she had been consulted during the production process she would have contributed to the accurate telling of the story.
“My child has certain rights as do all children, to a quiet life, to respect for his personal integrity, and obviously to his past, his present and his future. And information that is woven around his own story will obviously affect our personal peace,” Rojas said.
Rojas was kidnapped alongside Ingrid Betancourt on February 23, 2002, during a tour for the presidential campaign, and was not released until almost six years later.
