France rejoices as French Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt is rescued
July 6, 2008
FARC hostages Ingrid Betancourt and 17 others freed in daring rescue operation.
After more than six years in captivity in Colombia, failing health and near death, Frenchwoman Ingrid Betancourt, 46, is finally a free woman. She was received in France to jubilant cheers and welcomed home warmly to French soil by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni. Freeing Betancourt was a pledge Sarkozy had made during his presidential campaign, and many credit his tireless diplomacy for helping to bring about this latest triumphant result. He had been working constantly with officials from Colombia, Venezuela and other nearby countries as well as the US to help secure Betancourt’s release, as well as to get her medical attention several months ago when her condition was reported to be at its gravest during her detention.
The rescue operation for Betancourt, who has dual French-Colombian citizenship, and the other freed hostages was an undercover mission worthy of a Hollywood film. (Three US and 11 Colombian soldiers were also freed.) The prisoners, hands bound, were led into a helicopter under the impression that they were being transported to another internment camp in Colombia. Their captors were likewise fooled. Colombian soldiers posing as members of a fictitious non-governmental organisation convinced the rebels that they would bring the hostages to meet FARC leader Alfonso Cano at a rebel camp. The non-governmental organisation ostensibly sent helicopters to transport the captives. However the helicopters were from the army and flew them to Bogotá’s military airport. It wasn’t until the hostages were in the air that they realized that they were finally free. Among the military intelligence agents making up the helicopter crew — presented to the FARC rebels as members of an unnamed international humanitarian group — were a nurse, a doctor and agents posing as an Italian, an Australian, an Arab and a Caribbean. Microphones also were aboard the Russian-made Mi-17 chopper, allowing those overseeing the rescue to monitor its progress.
Ingrid Betancourt’s six-year ordeal began in 2002. While campaigning for the Columbian presidential elections that year, dual French-Columbian citizen Ingrid Betancourt attempted to enter the demilitarized zone bordering on the territory of Columbian leftist militant group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). She traveled through the jungle without escort, and was kidnapped at a FARC roadblock. A captive ever since, Betancourt has often been referred to in the French press as the Colombian Joan of Arc. She was feared dead for a time, but then, video of a gaunt and dispirited Betancourt surfaced last November, the first proof in many months that the French activist was still alive. Her years of captivity have been a roller-coaster ride for Betancourt’s family, and for France. Indeed, Ingrid Betancourt has captured the imagination of people all over the world. The story of a girl from a privileged background who was raised in the ritzy salons of Paris, entered politics and held captive in the Colombian jungle has even been the subject of docu-dramas in the US. Betancourt has always re-emerged in headlines in France whenever rumors surfaced that FARC might release its prisoners.
Ingrid Betancourt was born in Colombia on Christmas Day, 196. Her mother was a former Miss Colombia, her father a French diplomat. Ingrid grew up in Paris’ swanky 6th arrondissement and attended the prestigious Institut d’études politiques de Paris (known as Sciences Po), one of the Grandes Ecoles that has spawned much of the political elite in France.
Betancourt married another French diplomat, receiving French citizenship, and bore him two children. (The couple later divorced.) She returned to her native Colombia in 1989, motivated by the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, a presidential candidate running on an anti-drug trafficking platform. She was elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1994 then formed her own party, the Green Oxygen Party, and became a senator in 1998. She wrote book criticizing then-Colombian president Ernesto Samper, published in France as Le rage au coeur (An Angry Heart) and later in Columbia. She has been known for years as a fire-brand in Columbian politics.
FARC began as a peasant army for socialism in the 1960’s. They still hold hundreds of hostages. FARC has been called a terrorist organization by the European Union, Colombia and its ally the US, and is accused of drug trafficking and other criminal activities to fund their cause. The group says it only wants to give the poor of Colombia a voice and representation among the wealthy elite classes.
Betancourt will receive medical attention in France. Up next for the freed hostage: a meeting with Pope Benedict, who has expressed a wish to give her an audience.
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