Political Leadership, Nonkilling and Love

Cascadia Publishing House and CGNK have just released the full PDF version of Diary of a Kidnapped Colombian Governor by Gillermo Gaviria Correa (2010), first published in Spanish by Revista Numero Ediciones (2005). The English text was translated by Hugo and Norma Zorilla and edited by James F. S. Amstutz, with CGNK as co-publisher. It can now be downloaded for free from CGNK’s website and paperback copies can be ordered from Amazon.com.

The Diary records daily thoughts of elected political leader, Governor of six million people in Antioquia, Colombia, kidnapped by FARC revolutionaries on April 21, 2001, killed on May 5, 2002 by the FARC during an unwanted, unsuccessful military rescue attempt. Governor Gaviria, dedicated to Christian, Gandhian, and Kingian nonviolence, was kidnapped at the end of a five-day, 65-mile, 1,000 person nonviolent peace- and dialogue-seeking march into FARC territory in relief of the besieged mountain town of Caicedo.

In early April 2002, he read Nonkilling Global Political Science received with medical and food supplies that First Lady Yolanda Pinto de Gaviria arranged to be delivered as humanitarian aid to him and eight fellow captives. The Diary shows how the book resonated with his previous thinking about how to introduce nonviolence in government administration, education, and public service. He envisioned a Secretariat of Nonviolence and a Center for Global Nonviolence in Antioquia. Every entry in his Diary begins with an expression of love to his wife. His pioneering commitment to nonkilling as an elected political leader merits discovery by leaders and people throughout the world.