Íngrid Betancourt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio (born December 25, 1961) is a Colombian politician, former senator, and anti-corruption activist. She is considered Colombia's most famous hostage, especially internationally. She was kidnapped by the FARC on February 23, 2002 while campaigning for the presidency. As of the fifth anniversary of her abduction, Betancourt is still being held.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Betancourt was born in Bogotá. Her mother, Yolanda Pulecio, was a former Miss Colombia who later served in Congress representing the poor southern neighborhoods of Bogotá. Her father, Gabriel Betancourt, was Minister for the General Rojas Pinilla dictatorship (1953-1957) and later a diplomat, posted to the embassy in Paris, where Ingrid grew up. Their house was frequently visited by leading Colombian personalities and intellectuals. She attended the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (known as Sciences Po), an elite higher education institute. After graduating, she married a fellow student and they had two children, Melanie and Lorenzo.
Her husband was in the French diplomatic service, and they lived in various places, including New Zealand. After the murder of Luis Carlos Galán, a candidate for the Colombian presidency running on an anti-drug-trafficking platform, Ingrid decided to return to Colombia (1989) and do something to help the country. From 1990 onwards, she worked at the Finance Ministry, from which she later resigned to enter politics. Her first campaign distributed condoms (preservativos), with the motto that she would be like a condom against corruption. The south of Bogotá supported her, thanks partially to the name recognition from her mother, who helped her campaign.
[edit] Public office
She was elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1994 and launched a political party, the Green Oxygen Party. During her term, she criticized the Samper administration, which was accused of corruption (Galil case) and accepting drug money for the electoral campaign. Sometime during this period, she divorced her French husband, and later remarried, to a Colombian.
She ran for Senator in the 1998 election. The total number of votes she received was the largest number of any candidate in that year's Senate election. During her Senatorial term, death threats from an unknown quarter forced her to send her children to New Zealand, thanks to the help of her ex-husband.
That same year, the presidential election was ultimately won by Andrés Pastrana Arango. Pastrana persuaded her to endorse him, and she campaigned on his behalf. She claims he later reneged on the promises he made to her when she agreed to do so.
After the 1998 election, Ingrid wrote a book, a memoir. Initially, it could not be published immediately in Colombia, perhaps because of the polemics against former president Samper and others, so it came out first in France as La rage au coeur ("Rage in the Heart"). It has since appeared in Spanish, in Colombia and elsewhere, as La rabia en el corazón, and in English as Until Death Do Us Part (2002).
[edit] Meeting with FARC
As part of her campaign in 2002 (the election won by Álvaro Uribe Vélez), Ingrid wanted to go to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) at San Vicente del Caguán to meet with the FARC. This had not been unusual — many public figures took the opportunity afforded by the DMZ, created by Pastrana to satisfy a FARC precondition for negotiations, to meet with the FARC.
However, after more than three years of negotiations, the peace talks were reaching a stalemate. From the beginning, the FARC had not agreed to hold a truce for the duration of the negotiations, nor to an oversight of the peace talks and the DMZ by different representatives of the international community. Though the DMZ was supposed to be a "laboratory for peace", in practice the FARC continued its kidnapping, military attacks, involvement in the drug trade, intimidation and displacement of the civilian population, and the purchasing of weaponry. Critics considered the DMZ to have been turned into a safe haven in which the FARC imposed its will as law, committing military attacks and acts of terrorism outside the DMZ before withdrawing back to it, in order to avoid direct confrontation with government armed forces. Also during this time, hundreds of civilians were kidnapped throughout different cities and rural areas of the country. They were then transported back to the DMZ were they were imprisoned, many of them having been kidnapped for economic extortion, other for "political reasons". By the end of 2001 the Colombian government and public opinion (according to different polls) were growing impatient and discouraged at the situation.
In February 2002, a turboengine plane flying from Florencia to Bogotá — a distance of some 1000 km (600 miles) — was hijacked in midair by FARC members. The plane was forced to land on a highway strip near the city of Neiva and then a number of its passengers were kidnapped, including one member of Congress. As a consequence, President Pastrana cancelled the talks with the FARC and revoked the DMZ, arguing that the FARC had violated the terms of the negotiation and had used the DMZ to grow stronger in military and logistical capabilities. In a televised statement, the president expressed the government's intention of retaking the DMZ, informing that the military operation would begin at midnight, and also urged the FARC to respect the lives and the livelihood of those civilians still present in the DMZ.
[edit] The Kidnapping
Several Colombian political figures continued to attempt to visit the demilitarized zone even as the talks ended. Most candidates for political office that intended to do so backed off when authorities warned them of the danger. Ingrid Betancourt, as another one of these candidates, insisted to be taken to the former DMZ by a military aircraft. President Pastrana and other officials turned down this petition arguing that neither they, nor the Colombian Army, could guarantee her safety during the turmoil that would follow the retaking of the DMZ. Additionally, Betancourt was running for president in the 2002 elections; aiding her in such a request meant that the government was rendering its resources to Betancourt's private political interests. Agreeing to Betancourt's request would also mean that the government was either backing a candidate for the presidential elections or that it then had to assist every single candidate in their demands of using official and military resources for their private interests.
When denied transport aboard this military helicopter that was heading to the zone, she decided to head into the DMZ via ground transport, together with her presidential running-mate Clara Rojas and a handful of political aides. On February 23, 2002, she was stopped at the last military checkpoint before going into the former DMZ. Military officers insisted to her and to her party not to continue in their effort to reach San Vicente del Caguan, the village used for the peace talks. San Vicente's mayor was the only Oxygeno elected official in the whole country by that day. Intense fighting was taking place inside the DMZ and the security situation was rapidly deteriorating. Betancourt dismissed their warning and she continued her journey, being kidnapped by FARC, who have held her ever since. Ingrid still appeared in the ballot for the presidential elections, as her husband promised to continue her campaign. In the end, she achieved less than 1% of the votes.
[edit] Uribe's Initial Policy
Ever since the days of the Pastrana negotiations, when a limited exchange took place, the FARC have demanded the formalization of a mechanism for prisoner exchange. The mechanism would involve the release of what the FARC terms as its "political hostages", numbering around 60, in exchange for most jailed guerrillas, numbering about 500. For the FARC, most of its other hostages, those held for extortion purposes and which would number at least a thousand, would not be considered subject to such an exchange, as of yet.
The newly elected Uribe administration initially ruled out any negotiation with the group that would not include a cease-fire, and instead pushed for rescue operations, many of which have traditionally been successful when carried out by the police's GAULA anti-kidnapping group in urban settings (as opposed to the mountains and jungles where the FARC keeps most prisoners), according to official statistics and mainstream news reports.
However, relatives of Ingrid and of most of FARC's political hostages have come to strongly reject any potential rescue operations, in part due to the tragic death of the governor of Antioquia department, Guillermo Gaviria Correo, his peace advisor and several soldiers, kidnapped by the FARC during a peace march in 2003. The governor and the others were shot at close range by the FARC when the government launched an army rescue mission into the jungle which failed as soon as the guerrillas learned of its presence in the area.
[edit] Current negotiations
In August 2004, after several false-starts and in the face of mounting pressure from relatives, former Liberal presidents Alfonso López Michelsen especially and also Ernesto Samper Pizano (who Ingrid had criticized) and, as shown in recent polls [1], the growing majority popular backing in favor of a humanitarian exchange (more than 60% would consider Colombia a "better country" if the exchange took place), the Uribe government seems to have gradually relaxed its position, announcing that it has given the FARC a formal proposal on July 23, in which it offers to free 50 to 60 jailed rebels in exchange for the political and military hostages held by the left-wing FARC group (not including economic hostages as well, as the government had earlier demanded).
The government would make the first move, releasing insurgents charged or condemned for rebellion and either allowing them to leave the country or to stay and join the state's reinsertion program, and then the FARC would release the hostages in its possession, including Ingrid Betancourt. The proposal would have been carried out with the backing and support of the French and Swiss governments, which publicly supported it once it was revealed.
The move has been signalled as potentially positive by several relatives of the victims and Colombian political figures. Some critics of the president have considered that Uribe may seek to gain political prestige from such a move, though they would agree with the project in practice. [2] [3]
The FARC released a communique, dated August 20 but apparently published publicly only on August 22, in which they denied having received the proposal earlier through the mediation of Switzerland (as the government had stated) and, while making note of the fact that a proposal had been made by Uribe's administration and that it hoped that common ground could eventually be reached, criticized it because they believe that any deal should allow them to decide how many of its jailed comrades should be freed and that they should return to the rebel ranks. [4]
On September 5, what has been considered as a sort of FARC counter proposal was revealed in the Colombian press. The FARC-EP is proposing that the government declare a "security" or "guarantee" zone for 72 hours in order for official insurgent and state negotiators to meet face to face and directly discuss a prisoner exchange. Government military forces would not have to leave the area but to concentrate in their available garrisons, in a similar move to that agreed by the Ernesto Samper Pizano administration (1994–1998) which involved the group to freeing some captured security forces. In addition, the government's peace commissioner would have to make an official public pronouncement regarding this proposal.
If the zone were created, the first day would be used for travelling to the chosen location, the second to discuss the matter, and the third for the guerrillas to abandon the area. The government would be able to chose as the location for the "security zone" among one of the municipalities of Peñas Coloradas, El Rosal or La Tuna, all in Caquetá department, where the FARC has clear political influence. It has been speculated by retired military analysts that the FARC could potentially set up mines or other traps around local military garrisons while the zone is in place.
The FARC proposal to arrange a meeting with the government was considered as positive by Yolanda Pulecio, Ingrid's mother, who called it a sign of "progress...just as the (government) commissioner can meet with (right-wing) paramilitaries, why can't he meet with the others, who are just as terrorist as they are."[5]
On February, 2006 "France urged Colombian Marxist rebels on Wednesday to seize the chance offered by a European-proposed prisoner swap, accepted by Bogota, and free dozens it has held for up to seven years. Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said it was up to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to show they were serious about releasing former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and other detainees" [6]
In an interview with French newspaper L'Humanité in June 2006, Raul Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said that Betancourt "is doing well, within the environment she finds herself in. It's not easy when one is deprived of freedom." [7]
[edit] Jacques Thomet book
A new book released in January 2006, Ingrid Betancourt, histoire de cœur ou raison d'état ? by Jacques Thomet, sparked a debate in France about the real reasons for the French government's involvement in the Ingrid Betancourt affair. The book claims that personal relationships between French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin (later prime minister) and the Betancourt sisters Astrid and Ingrid [8] were the main driving force for the French government's involvement in the case and the cause of several mistakes that have prolonged her captivity in the hands of the FARC guerrillas.
[edit] External links
- http://www.ingridbetancourt.com Official site in French and Spanish
- http://www.betancourt.info/ : comprehensive info on Ingrid Betancourt and the campaign for her liberation (in French - but the site has pages in nine languages - click on the appropriate flag at the top of the main page). Press articles about Human Rights issues in Colombia are posted daily in French, Spanish and English.
- Dans la Jungle, a song by Renaud for Ingrid Betancourt.
- http://www.filmstransit.com/ "The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt" documentary film - international distributor, Films Transit International, Inc.
- http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c625.shtml "The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt" documentary film - U.S. and educational distributor, Women Make Movies
