Ingrid Betancourt recounts Farc kidnapping

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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Ingrid Betancourt, who describes her time as a hostage in the Colombian jungle and comments on the challenges facing Colombia today. (Photo:Fabio Gismondi) Download MP3

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Q&A with Ingrid Betancourt on whether writing her book was a healing exercise (1:00)

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Bentancourt discusses former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the current social challenges facing Colombia (2:20)

• Ingrid Betancourt recounts Farc hostage ordeal in book
• Former hostages run for office in Colombia
• Book Review:Even Silence Has an End by Ingrid Betancourt

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MARCO WERMAN: Ingrid Betancourt was held hostage in the Colombian jungle for six and a half years. She was kidnapped in 2002 by the leftist guerrilla group known as the FARC. At the time, the dual Colombian-French citizen was a presidential candidate in Colombia. She and several other hostages were freed in a daring Army rescue in 2008. Ingrid Betancourt describes her captivity in a new book. She says that, while in the jungle, she was aware the pressure for her release was coming mainly from France. And that had some side-effects.

INGRID BETANCOURT:  It created a kind of weird situation where I was feeling that Colombians didn’t care what had happened to me and I felt abandoned. And, even in the guerrillas, they were like looking at me and saying, oh, you’re not Colombian, you’re French, I mean. And that was very diminishing because it wasn’t said in a way that you could feel it was respectful. It was kind of the way of mocking me. And that was difficult in many aspects. Even with my fellow hostages, sometimes because they had this kind of position that every time the radio would, that the subject of hostages would be brought up, my name came, they were very resentful and they would just be sometimes aggressive. They would turn off the radio or they would say we don’t want to hear about you anymore. Or what do you think you are? Do you think you’re a princess because you’re on the radio? You’re not better than we are. And all those kind of things.

WERMAN:  I was going to ask you, I mean some accounts of your time in captivity along with the other hostages describe you as arrogant and somehow above the other prisoners there. How do you respond to that?

BETANCOURT: Well, I think that was the reaction that some of my fellow hostages. But what I didn’t understand at the time is that for my fellow hostages, the fact that it was only my name on the stage, was offensive for them because we had been denied everything. And especially our identity. Some times the guards would want us to be called by numbers or they refer about us saying that we were the cargo, or the merchandise, or the objects. And this sensation of losing who you are, that triggered very deep problems in the psychology of many of my companions.

WERMAN: So, as such a high profile individual, did you ever steal yourself thinking I could never get killed here, I am Ingrid Betancourt. I was this presidential candidate. Or was the situation just so unpredictable that no interior monologue could comfort you?

BETANCOURT: It was impossible to say that because we knew that the guards had an order which was to kill us if there was an attempt to rescue us by the Colombian Army. And I had had this rough discussions with some of my guards in which, in one occasion I remember, we were marching and it was a girl and actually it was a guerrilla that I was sympathetic to. I mean she was kind, except for this moment when she transformed herself. She listened to some noise, she got scared, and she put the rifle on my chest and she said, now you have to run and if you don’t run, I’ll kill you. And so, of course, I run. But it was difficult for me to run because I had this heavy backpack. And then after the whole thing ended because the noise came from some animals that were just passing by, and actually she shot one, because we need meat and so she just turned into a hunter. But after that she explained to me, she said look Ingrid, if there are military after us and you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I will kill you. Because I’m not going to let them take you away. That’s the order I have. And to me it was something that it was very clear in my mind.

WERMAN: Just the fact that you survived in the jungle for six years is alone fascinating. What was the worst piece of bush meat that you had to eat while you were there?

BETANCOURT: Oh, my God. In literary sense or in [SOUNDS LIKE] sense?

WERMAN: Literally.

BETANCOURT: Oh, there were things I couldn’t eat. I refused to eat. For example, I remember we were [INDISCERNIBLE] to march, and the march was a complex situation because normally we would be starving. And at the end of one march, they killed some monkeys. And I was there when they killed the monkeys and for me eating a monkey was something I couldn’t do because I had had a very special relationship with a little monkey that they had captured and that I had tried to heal. And her name was Christina. And perhaps because of that, or perhaps because I thought they were so human in a way, I just couldn’t eat the monkey. But perhaps the worst was to eat snake.

WERMAN:  Why?

BETANCOURT: Just because of the taste. It’s kind of a horrible taste. So, yeah. But there were good things. For example, eating crocodile was very good. The taste of the crocodile is like lobster. So it was something that I really went when they had those kind of things, I would just forget it was a crocodile. I would just indulge myself. But that was very exceptional because normally we would eat only rice and beans.

WERMAN: Ingrid Betancourt, you filed a demand against the Colombian government of some six million dollars. Is that demand still active?

BETANCOURT: No, it’s not active because it became a great scandal in Colombia and this wounded me in a very, let’s say, special way. What happened is that – well in Colombia there is this law that allows you as a victim of terrorism to ask the state for compensation and many of my fellow hostages did that. And so I decided to do it and once I did it, the government just made a huge scandal with it. They said I was attacking justice, the soldiers that had liberated me, and that was really unfair. And the way it was presented and the reaction of the people and this huge hatred that just popped up suddenly like if I was a criminal, and it’s difficult for me even now to talk about this because I just have strong feelings about this.

WERMAN: Will you run for president again, Miss Betancourt, of Colombia?

BETANCOURT: No, I’m not ready. I’m not ready to – I’m not ready to fight in Colombia for what I think we have to fight. I think there is a process, a maturing process in the society, that we have to just undertake. I hope that President Santos, which I know very well, he was my boss when I was working in the trade ministry. I know he’s a very capable person and very honest. And I just hope he’s going to make it possible for people like me to come back.

WERMAN: Where will you live until then? In France?

BETANCOURT: Well, actually I’m living in some luggage. I don’t have an address. I just, with my daughter in New York and with my son in Paris. And now that I’ve finished the book I think I have to find a place for me.

WERMAN:  Ingrid Betancourt’s new book is called Even Silence Has an End. Thanks very much for speaking with us indeed.

BETANCOURT: Thank you, Marco. Thank you for having me.

WERMAN: There’s more from our interview with Ingrid Betancourt, including how tough it was to write her book, at TheWorld.org. This is PRI, Public Radio International.

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