SALON

Wednesday, Jan 30, 2013 5:01 PM UTC

Mother of baby born in captivity seeks to bar film

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Mother of baby born in captivity seeks to bar filmIn this Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013, Jose Crisanto Gomez, a farmer who was given a 7-month-old baby by Colombian rebels for caring, speaks during an interview in Duitama, Colombia. The Spanish and French filmmakers of "Operation E," say they were intrigued by Gomez's story because he claimed not to have known that the fair-skinned baby brought to him by rebels was born to political hostage Clara Rojas. Rojas gave birth to the baby boy in 2004 while a hostage of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has asked a court to prevent the film, “Operation E,” from being shown in the country, saying it would harm her child and “the free development of his personality.” (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)(Credit: AP)

DUITAMA, Colombia (AP) — It’s one of the most heart-tugging tales of Colombia’s long civil conflict: Rebels appear at the jungle home of a poor farmer carrying a 7-month-old boy with bandaged left arm.

The farmer tells them that the medicine man they seek isn’t around. They leave the baby anyway, and promise to return the following day. But they don’t. The abandoned child won’t see his hostage mother until an emotional reunion after she is finally freed from captivity three years later.

Now an award-winning movie about the case has itself become a part of the drama.

Clara Rojas, who gave birth to Emmanuel in 2004 while a hostage of Colombia’s main leftist rebel group, has asked a court to prevent the film, “Operation E,” from being shown in the country, saying it would harm her child and “the free development of his personality.”

A ruling could come this week in a case that has brought Rojas under criticism from anti-censorship advocates including writers, film critics and even President Juan Manuel Santos, a former newspaperman.

Rojas was campaign manager for presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt when the two were seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, in 2002.

Her story of a jungle relationship with a still-mysterious rebel and childbirth through a difficult Caesarean section, of having the baby taken from her and of their tender reunion, has long enthralled Colombians, whose nation was especially traumatized by rebel kidnappings in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Rojas objects to the movie’s focus on the farmer, Jose Crisanto Gomez, who she says held her son “captive” for seven months before turning him over the Colombia’s child welfare agency.

The Spanish and French filmmakers say they were intrigued by Gomez’s story because he claimed not to have known until Rojas’ release that the fair-skinned baby brought to him by rebels was born to a political hostage.

Officials have doubted that claim, initially protecting Gomez then prosecuting him.

The government put him in a witness protection program in late 2007 after the FARC came to him demanding he return the baby. But in May 2008, four months after Rojas was freed, he was jailed on charges including kidnapping, rebellion and giving false testimony.

Last April, he was freed, having never been tried, though the chief prosecutor’s office is appealing Gomez’s release.

Rojas, a 49-year-old attorney who runs a foundation that assists relatives of kidnap victims, declined to discuss the matter with The Associated Press. But her court action has created an uproar among Colombia artists who say freedom of expression is at stake.

A leading exponent of that view has been Santiago Gamboa, a Colombian writer who was on the jury of the Biarritz, France, film festival that gave a best-actor award to the man who plays Gomez, Luis Tosar.

“Clara Rojas can’t say that Gomez is bending the truth because Clara Rojas doesn’t own the truth,” he said.

President Santos agreed with Gamboa in a Dec. 29 tweet. “We should not begin to censor any expression of art, as a film can be.”

Gomez, 44, is a small, stocky man who denies any association with the FARC, saying they were simply “the authority” in the area, where he grew coca, the basis for cocaine.

He has had a tough time since taking his family away from his farm in San Jose de Guaviare after rebels came looking for him to try to get back Emmanuel, who had wound up in a foster family until the state finally tracked him down.

Gomez’s wife left him, though he continues to live with her father, the medicine man, and his seven children in Duitama, a peaceful dairy town north of Bogota known for its cheese.

But the film has been a boon for Gomez.

Its producers paid him an undisclosed sum to serve as an adviser, even while he was still in prison, said one of them, Farruco Castroman of Spain’s Zirco Zine.

And last year, he spent three months in Europe at screenings of the film, including at the San Sebastian festival in Spain.

Castroman said the filmmakers tried to negotiate with Rojas and offered her 1 percent of box offices receipts in Colombia. He said she wanted 1 percent of global receipts.

Shortly after the film was released in Europe last year, the legal action began.

Gomez, meanwhile, is looking for a job, and promoting the film to whomever will listen.

“You understand it’s not a documentary, he said. “It’s a film with lots of nuance, that provokes thought.”

___

Associated Press Writer Cesar Garcia contributed to this report from Bogota.

More By Vivian Sequera.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
126 points127 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
115 points116 points | 10 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
73 points74 points | 16 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
72 points73 points | 75 comments
vote
Journalists file suit against Manning trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
58 points59 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations