How an American preacher
came to help the Colombian rebels who abducted him
Sibylla Brodzinsky in
Havana, The Guardian
As an American citizen
traveling through remote corners of Colombia at the height of the nation’s
civil war, Russell Martin Stendal offered an enticing prospect for left-wing
rebels who often kidnapped foreigners for ransom.
So tempting, in fact, that
Stendal was abducted five times by different units of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or Farc.
“I would be moving through
the countryside and they would see this gringo and –pah! They would grab me,”
he recalls.
The first time, in 1983,
Stendal was held for five months with his hands tied to a tree with nylon.
Eventually his captor–an indigenous rebel commander–recognized him as the son
of a man whose lifelong work had focussed on helping indigenous groups in the
country. That was enough for the guerrillas to release him–but not to prevent
them from seizing him again.
Given the number of times
he was kidnapped, it might be natural for Stendal to nurse bitter and
resentfulness toward the Farc.
Instead, he claims that to
be helping the Marxist guerrillas negotiate an end to the country’s 51-year
civil war in peace talks being held in Havana.
Aboard his 50-foot
sailboat moored at the Marina Hemingway on the outskirts of the Cuban capital,
Stendal says his involvement has nothing to do with Stockholm syndrome, but
rather his belief that he can “disarm hearts”.
Stendal has not played a
direct part in the peace talks, describing his role as that of a “spiritual
guide” to the rebel group.
That a self-proclaimed
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary army would receive spiritual counsel of a
Christian missionary from the United States might seem incongruous, but despite
Farc’s doctrinaire public face, many of its members are in fact Catholic or
evangelical Christians.
“I don’t know anything
about negotiations and I am not a conflict resolution expert,” says Stendal,
sitting below deck on the Viajero del Alba, or Voyager of the Dawn. “I offered
to be a friend and to be a spiritual light for them.”
The polished wood table is
strewn with bibles in English and Spanish, as well as several books on
Christian thought authored by Stendal, known as Russ to friends in English and
Martin in Spanish.
Born in Minnesota, Stendal
still keeps a small cabin in the state–but he considers his real home to be
Colombia, where he arrived at the age of eight when his father set out to do
missionary work among the country’s indigenous groups. Stendal followed his
father’s footsteps into evangelism but focused his work on combatants in the
country’s conflict.
Stendal does not subscribe
to any particular religious sect. He founded a church called Colombia for
Christ and is closely linked to a group called The Voice of the Martyrs, a
non-profit interdenominational organization that helps “persecuted Christians”
throughout the world.
But his experiences in
Colombia transcends the spiritual plane. Discussing the current negotiations
between Farc and the government, he reveals sharp political insight about
Colombia, the actors in the conflict, and the way forward toward ending it.
“We can’t win the battle
against political and economic corruption without fighting a religious war as
well,” he says.
Colombian government
negotiators say they doubt Stendal is playing any role in the talks, but
sources within the Farc confirmed that he wields significant influence over
senior rebel leaders.
Last week, government and
rebel negotiators jointly requested a UN mission to verify the guerrillas’
disarmament and to monitor a bilateral ceasefire once a final peace agreement
is signed, which could happen as soon as March. The two sides have reached
agreement on four of six main negotiation points since talks started in Havana
in November 2012.
Just two months after the
peace talks had formally started, Stendal was invited by his former kidnappers
to Havana.
“They asked for my
forgiveness and asked me to accompany them,” he says.
Wanting to avoid any
misunderstanding about his role, Stendal first sought permission, speaking to a
high-level Colombian general and political officers at the US embassy in
Bogotá. “They gave me the green light to give the Farc ideas for peace,” he
says.
US officials acknowledged
Stendal as a “player” in the peace process and added that the US “talks to all
players”.
Stendal’s presence on the
side-lines of negotiations has not been without controversy: last February he
was arrested in Bogotá and charged with rebellion. Local headlines at the time
read “The gringo missionary who helped the Farc” and “American guerrilla of the
Farc captured”.
He was released a day
later–something virtually unheard of in a justice system where even the falsely
accused spend months or years behind bars before their cases are dropped.
Farc pressure may have
been behind the quick release. On his arrest, the rebels issued a statement
calling it a “judicial false positive” and adding that prosecutors had
“confused evangelisation with rebellion”.
“I have a lot of friends
and my friends have enemies, so I won some enemies as well,” says Stendal. The
charges against him have not been entirely dropped and the case was bumped up
to a superior court in December.
But Stendal denies being a
rebel sympathizer, saying that in his missionary work he has dealt with
guerrillas, paramilitaries and government troops alike, handing out bibles and
solar powered shortwave radios to all sides.
“I meet with rebels, I
meet with generals and I met with paramilitaries,” Stendal says.
In between talking to
guerrillas on his sailboat Stendal gives evangelising conferences in the US,
Canada, Europe and Africa and runs several powerful radio stations that
transmit via short wave into the deepest corners of the jungles and mountains
of Colombia.
But for now, he spends
much of his time on his boat in Havana, hosting guerrillas and army generals
participating in the talks. Pulling out his smartphone, he shows pictures of
senior guerrilla leaders aboard the boat, which Stendal sometimes takes out for
a spin with them. “Not too far because of security restrictions,” he notes.
All the factions in
Colombia’s conflict have been accused of terrible crimes against humanity:
massacres, rape, kidnapping and forced displacement. After decades of civil
war, many Colombians have questioned whether Farc fighters should be allowed
back into society.
But Stendal is convinced
that the guerrillas are ready to change. “I try to encourage them to do the
right thing, to remove the thorns and to heal the wounds of the heart,” says
Stendal.
He argues that the
transformation can already be seen in some rebel leaders. “I have seen a change
in the looks in their eyes,” he says.
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