Millions moved by teacher's seven-week walk for son

By Jeremy McDermott

BOGOTA, August 5 (Scotland of Sunday) - He is the humble teacher who was greeted like a rock star when he walked into Bogota, was courted by the president and Colombia's political elite, and was the inspiration for a two million signature petition. But Gustavo Moncayo still feels he is no closer to his aim of getting his son home.

Moncayo, 55, a social studies teacher from a remote town in the province of Narino by the Ecuadorean border, cannot believe he has become one of the most influential political figures in Colombia. All he wants is to embrace the son he has not seen for 10 years.

His son, Pablo Emilio, a soldier, was captured in December 1997 by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and kept for a prisoner exchange. The Marxist rebels currently hold 45 politicians, security forces personnel and three US intelligence operatives, who they say will not be freed until hundreds of their comrades in jail are released. Yet the government and the guerrillas have not been able to even agree on how to meet to talk about negotiations.

As the prospects of a prisoner exchange became more and more remote, Moncayo decided he must do something. So on Father's Day, seven weeks ago, he began walking the 600 miles from his home town of Sandona to the capital Bogota, on the way collecting signatures for a petition asking President Alvaro Uribe to conduct a prisoner exchange. As he got closer to the capital the number of people that turned out to cheer him on grew. Mystified, the Colombian media followed his steps and the reaction his progress caused. When, on Wednesday, he began his last stretch to the historic centre of the capital, Plaza Bolivar, he was mobbed as tens of thousands of people spilled out on the streets to greet him and touch him.

Moncayo has done some-thing that innumerable politicians that champion the idea of a prisoner exchange have been unable to do: touch the people of this violence-wracked nation. Throughout his journey he has broken down in tears as he spoke about his boy, who has now spent almost a third of his life in captivity.

"Moncayo is a hero who has opened the eyes of Colombians to the suffering of the parents of those kidnapped," said Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of the most famous hostage the FARC hold, Ingrid Betancourt. Betancourt is a glamorous former presidential candidate who also holds French citizenship and whose release has become a foreign policy priority for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Eduardo Alvarez, 44, a bank clerk, gripped his own son, Juan, as he offered his opinion. "Moncayo has no political agenda, he is just a father with a broken heart who misses his son and wants him free again," he said. "That is why he has provoked such a reaction."

In Bogota, President Uribe went to Moncayo's protest headquarters, a tent in the Plaza Bolivar. He sought to use the support Moncayo had gathered and turn it against the guerrillas. But he did not convince Moncayo, who has decided to continue his protest until his son is released. "Sadly our children are still in the jungle," Moncayo said.

Photo by "Camino de la Paz"