STORY OF A GUERRILLA KIDNAPPING OFFERS PICTURE
OF MODERN COLOMBIA AND HEROIC ACTIONS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Nov. 18 -- A forthcoming book by a
University of Virginia historian offers a unique, firsthand account
of a political kidnapping in Latin America.
	The book, "Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks:  A Journey into
the Violence of Colombia," by Colombian-born professor Herbert
"Tico" Braun explores the meaning and morality of revolutionary
violence as it tells the stories of an American oil executive who
was kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas, family members trying to
negotiate his release, and the guerrillas themselves.
	Braun, a leftist historian long sympathetic to causes
seeking social justice, was himself one of the family members and
negotiators.  Iacopo "Jake" Gambini, the wealthy and politically
conservative Texas oilman who was kidnapped, is his brother-in-law. 
	In the course of participating in -- and later struggling to
write about -- the dramatic events, Braun said he arrived at a
fuller understanding of the complicated violence that has plagued
his country and of how the society works in the face of so much
violence.  And the almost personal relationship he developed with
the guerrillas gave him, he said, insights for describing the
guerrilla movement from the inside.
	Weaving in the voices of politicians, drug traffickers,
journalists and army leaders, the fast-paced, novel-like story, to
be published this month by the University Press of Colorado, should
be of special interest not only to observers of Latin America and
revolutionary movements but to anyone interested in security
management, ransom negotiations and the psychology of terrorism.
Among advance praise it has received, Tina Rosenberg, author of the
acclaimed "Children of Cain:  Violence and the Violent in Latin
America," has described it as "rich, wise, sharp-eyed, and
human...the diary of a nightmare journey taken by Jake, his family,
and Braun's beloved Colombia."
	Braun's account begins with an early morning phone call he
received at home in Charlottesville on June 24, 1988.  It was from
his sister.  "They took Jake" were her first words.
	The owner of a small oil-service company who had operated in
Colombia for more than 30 years, Jake Gambini refused to use armed
guards and was known for his fair treatment of his employees.  But
having done something he rarely did -- stay the night at an outlying
oil camp -- he had suddenly become one of the hundreds of persons
who are kidnapped for ransom every year in Colombia.  The
kidnappings are part of a decades-long insurgency aimed at bringing
about a more democratic government and freeing the country from
control of foreign oil interests.
	Braun, whose mother and several other family members live in
Colombia and who had written an earlier award-winning study of the
roots of violence there, went immediately to the Gambini home in
Houston to help plan what the family should do.  He eventually took
a leave without pay from U.Va. for a semester to go to Bogota to
join in ransom negotiations with a Colombian friend of his
brother-in-law.  Trying to secure Gambini's release without
subjecting his family to open-ended financial demands that couldn't
be met, they conducted numerous fruitless telephone conversations
with the guerrillas. 
	When Gambini was finally released more than four months
later, largely as a result of his own refusal to negotiate at all
and his insistence on basic human rights, Braun taped lengthy
discussions with him about his experience and also with others close
to the events.  One of his main aims was to tell a multi-sided story
"through the many conflicting voices of my country."
	In addition to tape recordings of the negotiations with the
guerrillas, he includes numerous interviews with leaders of the
guerrilla movement conducted by journalists and published in
Colombia.  Impoverished people living in rural isolation and
fighting for years with little to show for it, they have made an
industry of kidnapping but have their own rough code of honor.
	Because he is a player in the events, Braun's story is
partly his own as he comes to grips with his own conflicts about
Colombian history.  But above all the book is his brother-in-law's.
Refusing all special treatment and all but a minimum of food,
Gambini steadfastly insisted that no one has a right to hold someone
else against his will.  Although he was subjected to physical
indignities and psychological abuse, he treated the guerrillas with
respect, even at one point taught them to play cards.  Braun
believes he also taught them much more than that.  "He served as an
example of human strength to them."
	Braun said he tried at first to lay out the various sides of
the story as an even-handed historical count.  But the story
wouldn't come together for him.  "It was a constant struggle."
Finally he forced himself to finish it out of a sense of obligation
both to Colombian history and to his brother-in-law.  "I think his
actions need to be recorded publicly," he said.  "There is much that
we can learn from them."
  	He found he couldn't just tell the story "as though the
voices were all of equal value, as though the world were some kind
of postmodernist smudge.  It was my brother-in-law's beliefs and
actions that showed me that this was simply not possible.  His truth
comes from a deeply seated universalistic conception of humanity.
Mine was historically contingent, coming from the particular
circumstances of injustice in Colombia....Ultimately the book is
about his principles, how his actions during his captivity led the
guerrillas to release him.  It's about his truth." 	A staunch
believer in freedom of the individual above all, and not wanting his
family to jeopardize their future or reward blackmailers, Gambini
eventually wasted away so much the guerrillas began to fear he might
die.
	Searching for a voice of his own in writing the book, Braun
said he came to see the guerrilla movement in a new, but still
history-related light.  Rather than hoping any longer to bring about
a more democratic society, they now simply use their kidnappings as
"a form of retribution, a payback, " he said.  "Savage capitalism
and kidnappings are different sides of the same coin. The
kidnappings preserve the status quo.  The elites of Colombia have
come to live with them, because they understand that by kidnapping,
the guerrillas have lost their revolutionary voice."
	"Jake knew from the start that what was happening to him was
wrong," Braun writes. "Jake looked the kidnappers in the eye and
said, ÔNo, I'm not going to go along with thisÕ....His beliefs made
it possible for him to look death in the face."
	"Does it make any difference that I see the kidnappings and
all the violence of Colombia in terms of history, the past, and the
growth of the market, of capitalism?  Isn't his clear moral vision
the truly meaningful one?"
	The Colombian guerrillas are still at work, with more than a
thousand kidnappings reported each year and many more unreported.
Jake Gambini is said to be the same person he always was and
continues to run his company, although his family won't let him
return to Colombia.  Tico Braun has gone back to his job as one of
U.Va.'s most popular teachers of history.  But, he said, "I think my
brother-in-law, through his actions, taught me a truth that
transcends history."
###
November 17, 1994

	Herbert Braun may be reached at (804) 924-6406 or (804)
979-3859.  For review copies of "Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks,"
contact the University Press of Colorado at (800) 268-6044 or (303)
530-5337.