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  The Eternal Hostage: Betancourt Family Still Waiting for Freedom

The Eternal Hostage Betancourt Family Still Waiting for Freedom

By Jens Glüsing and Stefan Simons

Part 3: 'You Have to Put an End to the Kidnapping'

Back in Colombia, Betancourt made it her mission to fight corruption, denouncing leading politicians for their connections to the drug mafia. The attacks struck a sour note within the conservative establishment, and Betancourt developed a reputation as the black sheep of a prominent political family. "She was young, attractive and sexy -- and seen as traitor to the social class she comes from," says Marelby Aggaton, a friend of Betancourt's.

Betancourt's crusade initially triggered derision and animosity, followed by brutal threats against the lives of her children, Mélanie and Lorenzo. One of the pieces of hate mail she received included a photograph of a murdered child whose head had been severed with a chainsaw.

She had her first encounter with the guerillas in the late 1990s, when she arranged a meeting in the jungle with the legendary FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, known as "Tirofijo" (Sure Shot). The guerilla leader, who is almost 80 today, founded the FARC in the 1960s as a Marxist peasant army.

After the meeting, Betancourt was convinced that peace could only be achieved by coming to terms with Tirofijo. In mid-February 2002, a few days before she was kidnapped, she met with the rebels again, together with a group of other presidential candidates, to discuss conditions for peace. The politicians sat with the rebels, drinking beer and lemonade. "The first thing you have to do is put an end to the kidnapping," Betancourt demanded.

The news of Betancourt's own abduction reached Delloye in New Zealand, where he was stationed at the time as a member of the French diplomat corps. As shocked as he was, Delloye was also convinced that the FARC would quickly release its prominent prisoner. "The rebels could have gained broad support by doing so," says Delloye today, "and would also have secured presidential candidate Betancourt's backing for more significant compromises."

But these sorts of pragmatic considerations are foreign to the jungle rebels. They have been hiding in Colombia's mountains and forests, isolated from the outside world, for more than 40 years. The FARC has now secured its own survival by entering the cocaine business, with kidnappings and with demands for protection money. The group has ruled out compromises or even peace negotiations for as long as Uribe remains in power.

The rebels hope to exchange their 45 "political" hostages, including members of parliament and senators, for more than 500 of their own guerillas currently in government prisons. Betancourt is their most important bargaining chip. In the past, she consistently rejected any exchange. In the first video of Betancourt in her jungle prison, which was sent to the family more than four years ago, she argued energetically that she was not a prisoner of war but a civilian, and that she ought to be released unconditionally. Apparently undaunted by the effects of having been held in jungle captivity for more than a year, she seemed as young and eloquent as ever, unlike her friend Rojas, who sat silently next to her.

Her former fellow prisoner Pinchao describes Betancourt as a strong, combative woman who spent long nights in the wilderness discussing politics with her captors. He admires her for the way she gained the respect of the rebels. For instance, he says, she would argue with her guards whenever they would follow her to the toilet. She tried to flee five times, and on one occasion she spent several days lost in the jungle before she was recaptured. As punishment, she was frequently chained from then on and her radio was taken away for a short time. She and Rojas were kept in separate locations during the last three years.

After contracting hepatitis and leishmaniosis, an infectious disease, Betancourt quickly lost weight. During forced marches from camp to camp, she often had to wade through swamps and rivers for hours, carrying her belongings, until she was too weak for these ordeals. "Ingrid normally weighs 50 kilos (110 lbs.). She was always a slender woman," says her husband Lecompte. "But in the most recent photos she's nothing but skin and bones."

For Betancourt, the separation from her family has been the most trying of her hardships. She accidentally learned of the death of her beloved father when she read about it in an old newspaper. The rebels took away a religious amulet that she had been given as a child, but they allowed her to keep her Bible. An intellectual and a voracious reader, she begged her captors for books, but her efforts were in vain. She broke down in tears on one video, which was never released to the public.

Her radio, which has been returned to her, is now Betancourt's only contact to the outside world. She is surprisingly well informed about the efforts to secure her release, and she even thanked Chavez in her last letter. She no longer objects to an exchange, but she also warns against giving in to the guerillas' demands too easily.

Betancourt's family members initially came up with bold plans for dramatic rescue campaigns, but they also put together ransom offers numbering in the millions. But, as Delloye recalls, they were soon overcome by naked fear. "We faced a fundamental question," says Fabrice, "should we place our bets on discreet diplomacy or the broadest media campaign possible?"

The family chose the public approach. Her husband Juan Carlos, her sister Astrid and her mother Yolanda combed through their address books, convincing actors, authors and journalists to issue statements of solidarity and draw the public's attention to the case. Betancourt was named an honorary citizen of dozens of cities and towns, and friends set up a Web site.

Because Betancourt also holds French citizenship, Delloye, thanks to his strong connections to the French Foreign Ministry, managed to enlist the help of Paris diplomats. Then Foreign Minister de Villepin, Betancourt's former professor, put his entire machinery of embassies, intelligence services, local informers and fellow politicians into motion, although initially without any noticeable success. French and Swiss envoys traveled back and forth between Europe and Latin America, where they arranged complicated meetings and attempted to communicate with FARC contacts. In July 2003, a solo attempt by Villepin, who was the French prime minister by then, to secure Betancourt's release by way of Brazil failed due to mistrust and poor coordination.

"After that humiliating effort, he wouldn't touch the Betancourt case," says Delloye. But Villepin's rival Nicolas Sarkozy immediately took on the kidnapped politician's cause. "Sarkozy has always been sympathetic," says Delloye, who is clearly deeply appreciative of the current president's efforts. "He made Ingrid's release a priority within his administration from the very start."

Sarkozy pressured Uribe to release Rodrigo Granda, the FARC's unofficial foreign minister, who was still in government custody at the time. When the FARC failed to react, he urged Uribe to accept Venezuelan President Chavez as a broker. Chavez, a leftist himself, has a good relationship with the rebels, who use Venezuela to smuggle their cocaine out of South America, as a safe haven and as a base for buying weapons. The Venezuelan authorities and the military have consistently turned a blind eye to the FARC's activities.

Betancourt's family members continue to pin their hopes on Chavez's efforts to negotiate a deal with the rebels. They see the release of Clara Rojas and Consuela Gonzalez as an affirmation of their faith in Chavez. "No one has achieved as much as Chavez has," says Lecompte.

Over Christmas, Lecompte spent hours flying over the jungles along the border between Venezuela and Brazil, where it is believed that his wife is being held, dropping tens of thousands of flyers with pictures of Betancourt's children. He wants her to know what they look like today. She hasn't seen any photos of Lorenzo and Mélanie in almost six years. And Lecompte keeps on praying, every Saturday at noon.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan