President of France Sarkozy appeals to Colombian rebels to release Ingrid Betancourt
March 5, 2008
President of France Nicolas Sarkozy appealed directly to FARC, the Columbian Leftist group, for the release of six-year captive Ingrid Betancourt, amid news that she is very ill. The move came after the release of four hostages and after a Columbian raid killed a key FARC figure in the ongoing negotiations to free the group’s 45 remaining high-profile hostages.
While campaigning for the presidential elections in 2002, 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 an escort, and was kidnapped at a FARC roadblock. A captive ever since, Betancourt is often referred to in the French press as the Colombian Joan of Arc.
Hope for Betancourt’s release rose when 2 hostages were freed unilaterally by FARC last month, and only recently four more Columbian Parliament members captive almost 6 years were released in a secret jungle location and flown to Caracas to be reunited with their families. The deals were brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has made no secret of his affinity for the FARC’s cause. President Uribe of Columbia has chafed at what he sees as Chavez’s meddling in his country’s affairs, but has been hamstrung by images of happy Columbian families reunited.
The releases had raised hopes that more high-profile hostages would be released, including Betancourt. Chavez was said to be in secret communication with both President of France Nicolas Sarkozy and FARC negotiators specifically for Betancourt’s release.
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 now is held captive in the Columbian 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.
But now there has been another snag. The killing of a Colombian rebel commander in Ecuador in a raid by Columbian government forces last weekend has damaged chances for a hostage exchange between Colombia’s government and the guerrillas, the insurgents said on Tuesday. The death of Raul Reyes, No. 2 leader of the FARC set off a diplomatic crisis. FARC said Reyes, their chief negotiator, had been trying through Hugo Chavez to set up a meeting with President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, aimed at freeing Ingrid Betancourt. It was the best chance possibly in her six years of captivity for France to secure her release.
“The death of commander Raul not only dangerously raised tensions between the government and its sister republics, it gravely damaged possibilities for a hostage exchange,” the FARC said in a statement.
Betancourt is among some 40 high-profile hostages whom the Farc rebels have offered to free if the government releases around 500 jailed rebels and sets up a demilitarized zone for the exchanges. But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has maintained a tough line, insisting that any freed rebels must give guarantees that they will not pick up arms again. Uribe also doesn’t want to demilitarize the border, as FARC has called for, to help free hostages because he doesn’t want to give in to any of their demands or legitimize what he characterizes as a terrorist organization. Uribe came to power promising a tough stance against the FARC so any concession might be seen as weakness or backpedaling on his promises.
FARC began as a peasant army for socialism in the 1960’s. They hold about 1000 hostages, of whom Betancourt is probably the highest-profile. FARC has been called a terrorist organization by the European Union, Columbia 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 Columbia a voice and representation among the wealthy elite classes.
Recently freed hostage Perez said he tried to escape once since his captivity in 2001, with the French-Columbian Betancourt, but their attempt failed. Another freed hostage said he briefly saw Ingrid Betancourt alive on Feb 6 (rumors have been rampant that she might be dead since a video of a gaunt and dispirited Betancourt surfaced in November) but that she is very sick.
In a letter addressed to her mother released in France soon after the video, Betancourt says her strength has diminished, her appetite has gone, and her hair is falling out. Here, we are living like the dead,” Betancourt wrote. But she also said she has been able to hear messages from her family and other supporters on Colombian radio and asked her two children in France to send three messages a week, even though she is not able to respond.
Sarkozy says the release of French citizen Betancourt is a high priority. Now that Columbia and its neighbors are enduring such tensions, French official Bernard Kouchener suggested at a meeting that other countries get involved and that Brazil could play a more neutral role in the mediation.
After Sarkozy’s appeal, Lorenzo, Betancourt’s son, hailed the move saying it is the first time that a French head of State has spoken directly to the hostage takers since his mother’s abduction. Lorenzo made his own appeal to the hostage-takers, appearing on a French TV station, pleading that his mother’s flame was going out and that all life is precious.
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.
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