Clara Rojas, a former FARC hostage who ran as Ingrid Betancourt’s presidential running mate, was named director of a prominent Colombian anti-kidnapping NGO Thursday.
Rojas, one of the guerrilla group’s most high-profile former hostages, will lead the Free Country Foundation, a group which aims to “prevent and fight against kidnapping, extortion and forced disappearance,” according to its mission statement.
Francisco Santos, a former kidnap victims of drug lord Pablo Escobar who later served as Colombian vice president, founded the organisation.
Unlike Santos, who was a leading figure in a conservative governement, Rojas spent much of her career aligned to the political left.
In the lead up to the 2002 presidential election, Green Party candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, named Rojas as her running mate. On February 23, 2002, FARC guerrillas kidnapped both Betancourt and Rojas when they attempted to make an overland campaign trip to the newly remiltarized zone of El Caguan, in the southwestern department of Caqueta.
The relationship between Betancourt and Rojas deteriorated during their time in the jungle. According to Betancourt’s memoir “Even Silence has an End”, Rojas lost interest in escaping their jungle jail. Colombian armed forces liberated Rojas and her fellow captives were freed in two operations in 2008.
