Orlando Rangel never had problems with Colombia’s guerrillas. As one of the world’s experts on the high Andean plains, known as páramos, he spent weeks at a time in inhospitable wilderness conducting biodiversity research with colleagues and students from National University in Bogotá. But that all came to an end on Aug. 10, 2000, when the rebel and communist National Liberation Army (ELN) seized Rangel and 24 students in rural Antioquia state. The guerrillas made the researchers hike in the dark for 12 hours in a storm through the high mountains. They called radio stations, announcing the kidnap as part of a guerrilla-imposed ban on all travel in the region. And after holding the researchers in mountain huts for three days, they released them... [Log in to read more]
