Kidnapping news

In October 1993, Marucha Pacheon and her husband, Liberto Piamithar, suggested to me that I write a book about their experience during her kidnapping for a period of six months, and about the arduous efforts made by her husband to secure her release. I had already made progress in writing the first draft when I realized that it was impossible to separate that kidnapping process from the nine other operations that took place at the same time in the country. In fact, the ten kidnappings were not different — as we initially thought — but rather a collective kidnapping of ten well-chosen people, carried out by the same group for the same sole purpose. This late discovery forced us to start again with a different building and perspective, so that all the characters would have their well-defined identities and their own faces. What we did was a technical solution for a tangled narrative that, in its initial form, would have seemed sensational and unfinished. Nevertheless, the work that was originally planned to be completed in one year extended to almost three years, always with precise and appropriate assistance from Marucha and Alberto, whose personal story became the central focus of this book and its guiding thread.