Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Ingrid Betancourt

The Colombian newspaper El Tiempo published today an article about secretes negotiations occurring between the FARC and the French government to get Ingrid Betancourt freed. According to El Tiempo the representative of the FARC Rodrigo Granda, who was arrested in December, was in touch with the French ambassador in Colombia; the Colombian authorities denied that assertion although the French claimed that the Colombians have always been informed of the way the French were trying to obtain the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt.

Ingrid Betancourt is a Franco-Colombian citizen who was running for the Columbian presidency when she was kidnapped by the FARC on February 23, 2002; as a politician, she always kept denouncing corruption. Ingrid Betancourt has become well-known in France over the past 3 years since her family there is actively fighting for her liberation: many demonstrations have been organized in Paris since her kidnapping and her family is often addressing the media to have the French government hold negotiations with the Colombian government and more recently with the FARC representatives.

The case of Ingrid Betancourt is a constant source of concern in the French media. For the anniversary of her kidnapping, France urged “the Colombian parties to take the concrete decision” to obtain the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt ; the representative of the Department of Foreign Affairs added that France was ready to “seek with them the conditions for a humanitarian solution” but the Columbian parties “were now to be in charge of the concrete decisions to go ahead” in the direction of obtaining the liberation of the hostage.

The issue of the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt has been a source of tension between France and Colombia over the past 3 years since Paris is willing to negotiate with the FARC whereas the Columbians strongly oppose to that possibility. Almost all the representatives of the FAC who were in touch with the French diplomats and the Betancourt family for negotiation have been arrested before any agreement could be reached; in retaliation to the iron policy of the Colombian government, Ingrid Betancourt’s family has made several declarations denouncing the uncompromising position of President Alvaro Uribe: the mother of Ingrid Betancourt recently declared that “Alvaro Uribe is an unsympathetic man who is only thinking about his reelection. He is controlled by the Americans and the paramilitaries.”; she also declared that "President Uribe has always plotted very cleverly to sabotage all our attempts to get in touch with the FARC.”

Paris is trying to get support from the United Nations and is also trying to involve neutral countries like Switzerland in order to build a bridge between the Colombian government and the FARC. For the time being, the possibility of liberation of Ingrid Betancourt seems to be in a deadlock and will probably remain in that situation as long as Uribe will remain uncompromising.

This is the link to the article published in El Tiempo; unfortunately it is not available in English

I could not find any article dealing with the subject in English but, for those who can read French, here are two links to two French well-documented articles.

First link

Second Link

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