Report describes recent history of kidnappings in Colombia

A report issued on 20 June by Colombia's semi-official National Centre of Historical Memory (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica) and the consultancy firm Cifras y Conceptos was presented as "the most solid and consistent" history of kidnapping in Colombia from 1970 to 2010 and of its geographical and human anatomy. The report entitled Una Verdad Secuestrada used 1,302,337 data pertaining to 39,058 kidnap victims, and was created with the support of bodies including the Police, the European Union and Colombia's state prosecution service (Fiscalía), Caracol radio reported. The broadcaster reported some of the highlights of its findings: it stated that Bogotá, Medellín and Cali were the cities most affected by kidnapping in that period, with 2,572 registered kidnappings in Bogotá in 1970-2010, 1,920 in Medellín and 1,241 in Cali. Tuluá, a district half-way between Bogotá and the Pacific coast, had the fewest - 153 - kidnappings. The country's two communist guerrilla armies - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) - were found to be the most prolific kidnappers, followed by criminal gangs who nevertheless kidnapped more in cities like Bogotá, Caracol reported. Figures showed that criminals kidnapped most in Bogotá in this period - 840 times - while the FARC had carried out their greatest number of kidnappings in the districts of Miraflores in the department of Guaviare (182 kidnappings there), and in San Vicente del Caguán (152) and Villavicencio (142), respectively in southern and in south-central Colombia. The ELN kidnapped most in Cali (353) and in Valledupar (307) in the northern department of César near the Venezuelan frontier. Graphic representaion of the history of kidnappings showed that kidnappings began to increase from 1990 and rose exponentially around 1996, at the start of what the report termed as a "massification" period. Its chart showed that kidnappings reached a peak in 2000-2002, when they began to decline during a "containment" period, Caracol reported. A decline and stagnation in kidnappings broadly coincided with the two presidencies of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010), the conservative leader who waged war on crime and insurgencies.