Mark Henderson – filmmaker who returned to Colombia to ask questions of the man who held him captive
Mark Henderson has been through what has to be one of the most frightening things anybody could ever experience: being kidnapped. He was among a group of Western tourists held for over three months by Marxist rebels in Colombia in 2003. The remarkable thing about Henderson’s story is that six year later the British TV producer went back to meet and interview one of the people who held him captive, for the gripping film My Kidnapper.
"I was on holiday in Colombia in 2003. I was on a trek. On the morning of the fourth day we were just about to leave the place we were in, to go back down the mountain, and about 4:30 in the morning a group of armed men burst into our hut and took us hostage.
"Initially, they told us they were taking us to safety, that some people had been killed on the path, on the way to the Lost City, which is where we were. It was only 24 hours into the experience that we actually realised we were being kidnapped."
How did your kidnappers treat you in the first few days after your kidnapping? And what kind of a relationship did you begin to form with them?
"In the first few days we just didn't know what was going on. It was all very confusing. I'd never been in that kind of experience before. I'd never had armed men marching me with guns across the mountains. In those first few days, we walked up to 18 hours a day, hardly eating, just walking, walking, walking.
"Also you were in fear of your life. You didn't know what these people wanted. They didn't tell us anything, or what there demands were. Every time I'd hear a gun being cocked I thought, my God, they're going to shoot us."
As well as that thought, what was going through your head at that time?
"The main thing is I just wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what they wanted, I wanted to know what their demands were. In my head, if I knew that, I could work out how long we were going to be up there. But they weren't telling us anything."
What was the dynamic among the group you were in? I guess there were eight of you who were kidnapped.
"Yes, initially we were eight. One guy escaped on the first day. Then there seven of us: four Israelis, a German girl, a Spanish guy, and me. Quite early on there was a division within the group, between the Israelis and the Europeans.
"The Israelis wanted to fight and to rebel against our captors. And we wanted to co-operate with them, because we felt that would give us more food, more information. That was the most important thing - to get information about what was happening to us. The Israelis didn't believe that at all, and it caused quite a bit of friction within the group.
"Saying that, though, we still were hostages together in the same situation. But just because you're hostages together in the same situation doesn't mean you're all going to get on. You don't choose the people that you're kidnapped with. But we all went through an extreme situation and that sort of bonded us, in that sense.
"You've also got to remember that we couldn't fight with our captors. We could kind of scream and shout at them, but only to a certain extent. So actually I think some of the fighting probably turned in on ourselves, which wasn't healthy but it gave us a release."
"What they were fighting for came out slowly. They told us they were the ELN and then they gave us a few reasons for why they were kidnapping us. Those reasons changed and it was all quite confusing. It wasn't really until after our release that we found out exactly what they were fighting for.
"But what we did discover while we were up there was that they were trying to raise awareness of human rights violations, human rights abuses, against the indigenous people in that area and the local farmers. I'll admit I took comfort in that. It meant the kidnapping wasn't for money.
"It wasn't somebody ruining your life and ruining your future as well…somebody might have been getting something out of this kidnapping. As it turned out – we discovered from going back there – that was far from the truth."
Did you to any extent experience Stockholm syndrome, where the kidnapped will identify with the kidnapper?
"They are two words that are heavily loaded and I didn't want to use them in the film, because as soon as you do everybody's looking at that. But I would say that there is an element of it, and it's a syndrome, it's not a disease. It's something you adopt as a survival technique.
"I think whatever technique gets you through, you've got a right to adopt, you can do whatever. It's just something – until you're in that situation, you don't know what you will do."
You were released after 101 days. How was your readjustment to regular life afterwards?
"After you come out of something like this you are ecstatic, you are on top of the world, you're walking around almost in the clouds, in a daze. I didn't sleep for about three days, I was just wired on adrenalin. It's incredible flying back, going back to your family. I landed in the UK on Christmas Eve so it kind of had even more meaning around that time of year.
"But slowly your life adjusts and slowly you start to realise what you went through. Slowly what I started to do was to piece together what had happened to us, and to piece together other people's stories, because I wanted to find out what had happened on the outside.
"That feeling of elation doesn't last. A few months later I hit a low. It's almost like your brain is now finally realising what you went through. That was particularly hard to take, because you've gone from feeling on top of the world to feeling fragile again, almost back to the state you were in while you were in captivity.
"But you have to piece your life together again. For me that was about finding out as much as I could about the kidnapping, and then out of the blue, or semi out of the blue, I get an email from one of my kidnappers and that kept the book open I suppose. I wasn't able to close it.
That was the remarkable twist in your story – that one of your kidnappers, this guy Antonio, contacted you by email. Why did he get in touch with you?
"Antonio has his own motives, I suppose. He wanted to explain to us what it was they were fighting for. He realised also that we were human beings, and that we deserved that explanation.
"There was also a connection there. Though he was on the other side of the fence, we both lived up there in the mountains. He's not from the mountains, he's not that kind of person, he's an educated guy, with a university background.
"I think when they [Antonio and his future wife] left the mountains, they wanted to reach out to us. We didn't know with that first email that it would end up years later with us going back to meet him. But it was always on my mind, as soon as I heard from him. I think he wanted to explain himself, to explain the situation."
And what was your motivation? I know some of your family were opposed to you going back.
"For me, as soon as I knew he was out there, I knew I'd have to go back and meet him. Otherwise, I'd have so many questions for the rest of my life. My family obviously aired their concerns, and I had to take those on board, because they had already lived through this experience.
"But I suppose the driving force was that I wanted to go back. I wanted to find out my own story. I wanted to put the whole jigsaw puzzle together, I suppose."
What is your attitude to this guy Antonio, your kidnapper, today? Do you forgive him?
"Forgiveness is not as black and white, I think, as everyone would like it to be. It's a grey area. But yes, from going back and meeting him and making the film, it's allowed me to put the experience in the past, and I think forgiveness is part of that.
"If I was harbouring anger for the rest of my life, that would mean that the kidnapping still had a hold on me. I now understand his motives. I don't necessarily believe...I don't believe at all what they did was right. But I now have an understanding of the thought process behind it.
"I also have an understanding of him, and where he is on that...scale of seeking forgiveness and saying he's sorry.”
