Watching TV, Diana saw a show filmed in her Bogotá apartment. Realising she'd failed to lock a safe, she wrote to her mother, "I hope nobody is rummaging around in there." Through a TV program, her mother gave her reassurance.
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Assorted people visited the house. Unfamiliar women gave the hostages pictures of saints for good luck. Sometimes families with children and dogs showed up.
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As the news reported the kidnappings of journalists, celebrities and members of the wealthy class, Diana realised she was part of Pablo's plan to pressure the government into giving him the terms he desired for his surrender, including the end of extradition.
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At night, Diana kept a secret diary of whatever was on her mind, which ranged from thoughts on politics to things happening around her. Her first entry was dated September 27, 1990: "Since Wednesday the 19th, when the man in charge of
this operation came here, so many things have happened that I can hardly catch my breath." During the early weeks of her captivity, no one had publicly claimed responsibility, which Diana believed, according to her diary, was to enable the kidnappers to kill her quietly when she was redundant to them. "That's my understanding of it and it fills me with horror." As usual, she was more concerned with the safety of her colleagues than herself.
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Leaning on religion gave her strength. She wrote prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. When she wanted to speak to God or her family, she wrote the words down. She even prayed for Pablo: "He may have more need of your help. May it be your will that he see the good and avoid more grief, and I ask you to help him understand our situation. When the guards found out about the diary, they gave her more paper and pencils.
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Diana's ex-president father was doing everything in his power to try to get the government to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Pablo, which public opinion had moved in favour of. After the first round of bombings and assassinations, the outraged public demanded retribution and imprisonment. During the next round, the public still supported extradition. But now the bombings had gone on for so long that the public wanted peace.
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The president's security adviser offered an idea: if a trafficker surrendered and confessed to a crime, he would earn a sentence reduction, with a further sentence reduction available if property was turned over to the state. With the help of the justice minister, a draft was made: "Capitulation to the Law."
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Even though Pablo's nemesis, General Maza, feared that Pablo would continue running his operation while incarcerated, he didn't object to the draft, but he did say, "This country won't be put right as long as Escobar is alive." After the Council of Ministers signed the decree, Maza described it as a fallacy of the times.
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As the decree didn't guarantee non-extradition, Pablo was dissatisfied: "Because it must be in writing, in a decree, that under no circumstances will we be extradited, not for any crime, not to any country." He wanted traffickers to be pardoned in the same way as the M-19, which had been allowed to become a political party. He also demanded safety guarantees for his family and friends, and a prison impregnable to his enemies.
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Publicly, Diana's father denied getting any messages from the Extraditables, even though he had received a three-page handwritten letter: "A respectful greeting from the Extraditables," which he believed Was Pablo's pseudonym. The hostages were "in good health and in good conditions of captivity that can be considered normal in such cases." The letter railed against police brutality. It included three conditions for Diana's release. Firstly, the suspension of military operations against the traffickers in Medellín and Bogotá.
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Secondly, the withdrawal of the Elite Corps, a special police unit fighting traffickers. Thirdly, the dismissal of its commander and twenty officers accused of torturing and murdering 400 young men from the Medellin slums. Failing these conditions, the Extraditables would engage in a war of extermination by bombing the big cities and assassinating judges, politicans and journalists. "If there is a coup, then welcome to it. We don't have much to lose. The Extraditables wanted a response within three days, sent to a room at the Hotel Continental in Medellín.
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A notary took the response to the hotel. As soon as he entered the designated room, the phone rang.
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"Did you bring the package?"
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"Yes."
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Two young well-dressed men entered the room to collect the response.
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Within a week, Pablo dispatched Guido Parra to negotiate with the parents of some of the prominent hostages. The forty-eight-year-old had practised law all of his life and was considered an expert. Wearing a light suit, with a bright shirt and tie, he said he was Pablo Escobar's attorney.
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"Then the letter you've brought is from him?"
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"No," Guido Parra said, realising his mistake. "It's from the Extraditables, but you should direct your response to Escobar because he'll be able to influence the negotiation."
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Dr Turbay and another parent of a hostage, Santos, took the latest response from the Extraditables to the president, who met them in a small room adjacent to his private library.
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The president said that Guido Parra was a
bad emissary. "Very smart, a good lawyer, but extremely dangerous. Of course, he does have Escobar's complete backing." After studying the letter, the president cast doubt on its authenticity. Maybe it was somebody playing a trick pretending to be Pablo. He said that the intelligence agencies had been unable to ascertain the locations of the hostages. The two parents left the meeting disheartened.
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For weeks, Diana's parents had requested evidence from the kidnappers to show that she was alive. In October 1990, a cassette tape arrived.
"Daddy, it's difficult to send you a message under these conditions, but after our many requests they've allowed us to do it. We watch and listen to the news constantly."
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Hoping for a progress report, Dr Turbay took the recording to Santos, and they visited the president in his library. Over whiskey, the president blamed the lack of progress on the Extraditable for demanding a more specific decree. Having worked on the decree all afternoon, he believed that tomorrow would bring better news.
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The next day, the two parents found the president in a grim mood. "This is a very difficult moment. I've wanted to help you, and I have been helping within the limits of the possible, but pretty soon I won't be able to do anything at all."
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Dismayed, Dr Turbay stood. "Mr President, you are proceeding as you must, and we must act as the fathers of our children. I understand, and ask you not to do anything that may create a problem for you as the head of state." Pointing at the president's chair, he said "If I were sitting there, I'd do the same."
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Afterwards, Dr Turbay said to the other parent, "We shouldn't expect anything else from him. Something happened between last night and today and he can't say what it is."
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After having four children with Dr Turbay, Diana's mother, Nydia, had remarried. With Dr Turbay making no progress with the president, Nydia became more active. She arranged masses across the country. She organised radio and TV newscasts, pleading for the release of the hostages. She had soccer matches open with the same plea. She went to meetings attended by the family members of the hostages.
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An informant contacted the Colombian Solidarity Foundation, claiming that a note from a friend found in a basket of vegetables had stated that Diana was at a farm near Medellín, protected by drunken guards incapable of standing up to a rescue operation. Petrified that a rescue attempt meant certain death for her daughter, probably from police bullets, Nydia asked the informant to suppress the information.
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The clue about Medellín prompted Nydia to visit Martha Ochoa- Jorge Ochoa's sister who'd been kidnapped by the M-19 - who Nydia believed was capable of contacting Pablo directly. The Ochoa sisters listened to Nydia sympathetically, but said they couldn't influence Pablo. They complained to Nydia about the heavy-handedness of the police, and gave harrowing stories of their family's suffering.
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Having attempted to send a letter to Pablo via Guido Parra, and received no response, Nydia asked if they'd give Pablo a letter from her. Worried that Pablo might accuse them of creating problems for him, the sisters politely declined. Nydia viewed the encounter with optimism. Having felt that the sisters had warmed to her, she believed that a door had been opened that might lead to Diana's release and the surrender of the Ochoa brothers.
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Meeting with the president, she described her visit to the Ochoa sisters. She asked him to use his power to prevent a rescue attempt and to give the Extraditables more time to surrender. He said that his policy was not to attempt any rescue without the families' authorisation. Nydia left concerned that another entity might attempt to rescue the hostages without presidential approval.
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Nydia continued her dialogue with the Ochoa sisters. Visiting one of Pablo's sisters-in-law, she heard more details of police brutality. Hoping to provoke an emotional response from Pablo, she gave the sister-in-law a letter for him in her own handwriting that she'd constructed meticulously from many drafts. She addressed Pablo as "a feeling man who loves his mother and who would give his life for her, who has a wife and young innocent defenceless children whom he wishes to protect." She said that Pablo had achieved his goal of drawing attention to his plight, and requested that he "show the world the human being you are, and in a great humanitarian act that everyone will understand, return the hostages to us."
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