[ updates ]


July 2nd, 2008

She's no more hostage...

21h16, french hour, she has been freed, with the 3 american hostages, and 11 colombians.
2 commandants of the FARCs resigned...

Read more here about her 6 years of sufferance in the colombian jungle : [link]

i'm crying! so happy!

We've seen her on TV. She safe!

[ I N G R I D ]


I've supported this cause since a certain time now, i've not spread this before here on dA... Not so much..



[ Ingrid Betancourt ]


Often referred to in the press as the Colombian Joan of Arc, the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt has been held captive by a Marxist rebel group, the FARC, since February, 23th 2002.


Ingrid Betancourt was born in Colombia on Christmas Day, 1961, into a privileged family. Her mother was a former Miss Colombia, a fact that Betancourt would later leverage when running for office in her home country. Her father was a diplomat, in which capacity he moved with his family to Paris, where Ingrid grew up. She attended the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), one of the Grandes Ecoles that has produced many of France's political elite.


She married (and later divorced) a French diplomat, allowing her to receive French citizenship. She returned to her native Colombia in 1989, motivated by her distress over the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, a presidential candidate running on an anti-drug trafficking platform. She became actively involved in politics. She was elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1994, riding on an anti-corruption ticket. She then formed her own party, the Green Oxygen Party, and became a senator in 1998. She wrote a frank memoir criticising then-Colombian president Ernesto Samper. The book initially was published in France as Le rage au coeur (An Angry Heart); a Colombian version followed.


In early 2002, against conventional wisdom, she attempted to enter the demilitarized zone bordering on FARC territory, to meet with the latter group regarding her upcoming presidential campaign. She traveled on ground, without an escort. On February 23, 2002, during this attempt, she was kidnapped by the FARC; they have been her captors ever since. Very little concrete information has emerged about Betancourt since then. The FARC released a video of her in August 2003, in which the politician expressed love for her children.


Le Monde asked in its May 26, 2007 issue how such a horrid fate could befall "a young slender lady, raised between the elegant salons of Bogota, the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and the classrooms of Saint-Guillaume street (the location of Sciences Po)." Even American television has taken notice; the cable network Cinemax aired a biopic, The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt, in 2004. This came on the heels of speculation at the time that Ingrid might be released, which never materialized.

Betancourt has always hit headlines whenever rumours surface that the FARC might release its prisoners.



Kidnapped in 2002, Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt has been held captive in secret jungle camps run by the Colombian rebel group FARC. Very little information concerning Betancourt has emerged since her abduction, but video footage seized Nov. 29, 2007 has raised hopes she may still be alive. However, prospects for her release have dimmed since Colombian President Alvaro Uribe ended a mediation effort led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. On February 28, 2008, after a freed FARC hostage reported that captive Franco-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt was 'very sick', Venezuelian President Hugo Chavez asked the Marxist rebels to move her to a safe place.

While campaigning for the presidential elections in 2002, Betancourt attempted to enter the demilitarized zone bordering on FARC territory. The fiery Green-Oxygen Party candidate – who is also the daughter of a former Miss Colombia - travelled through the jungle, without an escort, and was kidnapped at a FARC roadblock. Betancourt is among 45 hostages whom the rebels intend to swap in return for 500 FARC prisoners currently held by the Colombian government. An active campaign for her release has pushed the fate of Colombian hostages up the political agenda both in France and Colombia.

The Marxist group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is branded as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, which accuses the organization of using drug-trafficking and other criminal activities to fund its activities. The FARC maintains it is striving to defend the rural poor against the Colombian government and wealthy elites.





=== November 2007 ===



In november 2007, Ms Betancourt was shown looking thin and haggard in a video seized by Colombian authorities.

After seeing it, Mr Sarkozy vowed to redouble his efforts to free her after a regional mediation effort failed.

Ms Betancourt - who has French nationality through a former marriage - was kidnapped in 2002 while campaigning for the Colombian presidency.

She was one of 45 high-profile hostages whose freedom Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tried to secure in exchange for about 500 imprisoned guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

The exchange bid was strongly supported by relatives of rebel hostages, but collapsed after the Colombian president accused Mr Chavez of breaking an agreement.

'Danger of death'

The collapse of the mediation attempt was lamented at the time by Mr Sarkozy, and early on Thursday he made a direct appeal to Farc chief Manuel Marulanda to free Ms Betancourt.

"I do not share your ideas and I condemn your methods," Mr Sarkozy said in the message broadcast on French television, reported AP news agency.

Ms Betancourt's case has become a cause celebre in France

Rebel hostage tapes aired
Betancourt letter released

"I ask you solemnly to release Ingrid Betancourt and not carry on your conscience the risk that her departure would bring," he said.

"You must save a woman in danger of death. You can show the world that the Farc understands humanitarian imperatives. Monsieur Marulanda, you carry a great responsibility."

Of Ms Betancourt, he said: "The flame is going out from this woman whose energy, audacity, courage, forced admiration from all who knew her."

In the video and photos released last week, Ms Betancourt was shown in a jungle setting, looking gaunt and subdued, along with 15 other hostages.

The following day, a letter was released from Ms Betancourt to her mother, in which she said her strength had diminished, her appetite had gone, and her hair was falling out.

"Here, we are living like the dead," she wrote.

[ Links & Support ]



The WebSites :
- Agir Pour Ingrid.
- Betancourt.info in Français, English, Espanol....
- Sign the Petition here : For Ingrid.
- Read the book as a letter, written by Ingrid's Children : Lettres à maman par-delà l’enfer, un livre par Ingrid, Mélanie et Lorenzo Betancourt, translated in several languages.
- View here the video sent by the FARCs that proves that Ingrid was alive in november 2007.
- Extracts of the letter from Ingrid to her children from the jungle.
- List of ALL FARC's hostages.
- Last News (in french).
- See all the videos.


Colombia's civil conflict (BBC Article) : [link]

Quick guide: Colombian conflict (BBC Article) : [link]


Well you can see on the official site The blinkies i've made that anyone can use in their email, sites everywhere : [link]


Télécharger l'annonce en mp3 du chanteur Renaud et d'Astrid, la soeur d'Ingrid, à l'occasion du 23 février 2006 : [link]

[ Clara Rojas, Emmanuel & Consuelo Gonzalez free! ]


=== Jan. 10th 2008 ==

Colombia's Farc rebels have released Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, two high-profile hostages.

An initial effort to free them ended after it emerged that Ms Rojas' three-year-old son Emmanuel - thought to be part of the release deal - was in fact in an orphanage in Bogota.

View the videos of the release : [link]



----------



CLARA ROJAS, 44, has been a hostage for nearly six years. An aide to former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Rojas is a lawyer who specialized in taxes and taught at Colombian universities.

"Clara was never a politician," recalled her mother, Clara. But she struck up a friendship with the aspiring young politician Betancourt.

"She got in to politics to help Ingrid," her mother said. "She was so caring, she wanted to see if she could resolve the problems of this country, but it's not that easy."


Rojas traveled to the south of Colombia in 2002 as part of Betancourt's presidential campaign. Their car was stopped by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Feb. 23, 2002, and they were kidnapped.

In a symbolic gesture, Betancourt's party nominated Rojas after her abduction to be its vice presidential candidate for the May 2002 elections.

She was last seen publicly in a video released in 2003.

In 2006, a Colombian journalist revealed in a book that Rojas had given birth to a boy, the product of a relationship with an unnamed guerrilla.

___

EMMANUEL: Almost nothing is known about Rojas' son, who is thought to be 3 years old and the son of an unidentified rebel.

The boy's existence was revealed last year after a Colombian journalist was told about him while visiting a FARC-controlled area. This and other reports of Emmanuel's extraordinary upbringing have provoked a wave of soul-searching in Colombia.

"We can't keep living the way we are in this country, where a child is abused like this since birth, a child who has no type of rights," said Ivan Rojas, the boy's uncle.

Colombia was shocked by the news of a baby born into captivity, who quickly became the symbol of all this South American country's captives.

The boy has been kept apart from his mother by the rebels, according to escaped hostage Jhon Frank Pinchao, a former police officer.

"They don't leave the baby with her," Pinchao said earlier this year as he revealed the boy's name to the public. "They let her see him and all, but it's the guerrillas who care for him."

Emmanuel is thought to be nearing his fourth birthday, though his birth date is not known.

___

CONSUELO GONZALEZ, a 57-year-old former Colombian congresswoman, has been held by the FARC for more than six years. She was snatched on Sept. 10, 2001, in the countryside near the southern city of Neiva. Her driver was freed the next day.

Gonzalez got her political start in the southwestern province of Huila, a rebel stronghold. She was a provincial deputy, then elected to congress in 1998 for the Liberal party.

"She was totally dedicated to the people. As a politician, she always sought the best for the community," said her daughter Patricia Perdomo, who recalled that her mother used to call her at least twice a day.

Gonzalez's husband died Jan. 4, 2003, and she learned of his death while listening to a radio program devoted to the hostages. She revealed this in a video filmed by a Colombian journalist in August 2003 — the last time her family received proof she was alive.

Gonzalez has a 2-year-old granddaughter, Maria Juliana, whom she has never met.

[from the Herald Tribune]

[ Past News ]


March/Earlier April 2008 : We have bad news about Ingrid Bétancourt.
She's in the Colombian Jungle, dying. She has several sicknesses.
All last released hostages or Farc's that have been captured say that she is dying.
A French Medical Plane is in Bogota...
What we all ask is at least for trying to save her life, a humanitarian action.


February 2008 : 4 hostages have been released.
See the newspaper article here : [link]

. articles . <:b>
- Doubts dog French mission.
- French medical team in Bogota to await FARC response on hostage.
- France determined to wait it out until Betancourt is freed.
- Ingrid Betancourt Needs Transfusion.
- Rebel's Death Hinders Betancourt Rescue.
- Lorenzo Delloye continues to fight for the freedom of his dying mother Ingrid Betancourt from a Columbian jail.
- Betancourt's sister says FARC must be compensated to secure release.
- Still no word from FARC guerrillas on Betancourt-France.
- Three-nation mission to save Ingrid Betancourt.
- Mission to help FARC hostages begins.
- Betancourt needs urgent treatment.


12/7/2007 : Uribe to set up a ‘meeting zone’
President Uribe stated he will create a ‘meeting zone’ to negotiate with Farc. This zone will be demilitarised where 45 hostage scan be swapped for 500 guerrillas. Neither the Colombian army nor Farc personnel will be armed.


12/7/2007 : FARC warns Sarkozy to tone down
The Colombian rebel movement the FARC has called on French President Nicolas Sarkozy to tone down. The movement says the president should not give the impression that he is bias, if he wants any chance of the hostages being released.


12/6/2007 : Colombia hostage families ask Chavez for more help
Families of hostages held by Colombian rebels have asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to keep trying to broker a deal to free the kidnap victims despite being fired from that job by Colombia's leader two weeks ago.


12/4/2007 : Ingrid Betancourt’s hidden message
Lucia Nieto, the psychologist from the association Pays Libre*, has analysed the demeanour shown by the Colombian citizen, Ingrid Betancourt in the video showing several hostages held by FARC, to interpret for us what the silence of the former Senator really signifies as she is videoed by her kidnappers.


12/3/2007 : No news of Clara Rojas
In her letter, Ingrid Betancourt states clearly that she knows nothing of the fate of her campaign associate, with whom she was kidnapped in February 2002, and who is the mother of a child born in captivity, three years ago, called Emmanuel

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