BOGOTA – A judge has spurned a prominent Colombian’s attempt to prevent the release of a feature film about the odyssey of the son who was born to her while she was a rebel hostage.
The mother, Clara Rojas, had argued that allowing “Operation E” to be shown in Colombian theaters will harm the development of her son, Emmanuel, who is now 9. But in a brief description of the decision posted to the Bogota court’s website, Judge Raquel Aya said the film does “not violate the child’s basic rights.”
Rojas, a 49-year-old attorney, is appealing the decision.
One of the film’s producers, Farruco Castroman of Spain’s Zirco Zine, said it will likely be released in Colombia in March.
Rojas was campaign manager for presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt in 2002 when the two were seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Rojas conceived Emmanuel with a FARC rebel whom she has not identified. His arm was injured during a difficult cesarean section in the jungle. In 2004, rebels took the boy, then age 7 months, from his mother, and the two were not reunited until she was released three years later.
The film focuses on Jose Crisanto Gomez, the poor farmer to whom rebels initially delivered the boy.
Rojas objected to that, saying Gomez 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 baby was born to a political hostage. Officials doubted that claim, initially protecting Gomez but later 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.
In April he was freed, having never been tried, although the chief prosecutor’s office is appealing his release.
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