"I dedicate these lines to those who are my oxygen, my life—to those who keep my head above water, who do not let me drown into oblivion, emptiness, and despair…. What they have done for us has made all the difference: they have made us feel human."
Ingrid Betancourt
The words that you are about to read come from hell, from a forsaken corner of our planet where laws, virtues, the rights of man—even the simple word human—no longer have any meaning, where women and men, snatched from their families, are now prisoners, shackled, treated like animals year after year. This book is a cry in the wilderness, a message in a bottle cast into the sea by Ingrid Betancourt, who was taken hostage in the Colombian jungle on February 23, 2002. It is even more than that; it is a declaration of love, a strike for freedom, a lesson in humanity.
Have you heard the story? Perhaps you'd rather not…. Some 2,200 miles from the United States, in a country so luxuriant and fertile that it might be mistaken for a second Eden, 17,000 fanatical guerrillas, claiming to follow an archaic Marxist ideology, make a living from trafficking drugs and human beings. Calling themselves the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), this organization has fought the Colombian government for nearly forty years in a civil war that has ripped the country apart, subjecting its citizens to daily violence, kidnappings, and illegal detentions. FARC uses hostages like currency for its sordid financial transactions. It also holds "political" hostages—members of congress, military men, civil servants—as shields against military intervention. Among these victims is Ingrid Betancourt, as well as three American citizens who were taken hostage on February 13, 2003.
In many countries around the world, Ingrid Betancourt has become a symbol of liberty and the fight against barbarity. Born in 1961 to a diplomat father (minister of education in Colombia, and later UNESCO ambassador to Colombia in Paris) and a mother who championed the cause of the street children of Bogotá, Ingrid Betancourt divided her time between France, where she studied, the United States, and Colombia. Disgusted with the political situation in Colombia, she became engaged in politics, leading an incessant and courageous fight against corruption and drug traffickers. The young woman immediately created a wave of hope when she was first elected to Colombia's Chamber of Representatives, where she tirelessly denounced the links between certain politicians and drug trafficking; four years later she was triumphantly elected senator.
In 2002, while running for president as head of the independent party that she had created, Ingrid Betancourt was seized by FARC on a Colombian road. Not until the summer of 2003 did her family receive a brief video message, explaining that she had been taken hostage. Long months of silence followed.
Over the years the movement for her release has grown, not only in France but also all over Europe. Though there was no definite evidence that she was even still alive, she was named an honorary citizen of many French cities. In Paris, huge portraits of her were hung on the Hotel de Ville and on the gates of the Luxembourg Gardens. Diplomatic action intensified; her cause was mentioned in many international meetings. In 2007, just after his election as president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy declared the release of Ingrid Betancourt an absolute priority of his government. Emissaries were sent from France to a number of countries, notably to Latin America, to urge the Colombian government and FARC to accept a "humanitarian accord" and exchange hostages—among them Ingrid Betancourt—for imprisoned guerrillas. Responding to this pressure, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez offered his services in an attempt at mediation.
On December 1, 2007, during the arrest of some guerrillas in Bogotá, the Colombian police confiscated a video that included messages from the three American hostages to their families, as well as a short clip of Ingrid Betancourt, alive, emaciated, and drained, but still defiant toward her tormentors. The video was accompanied by a long letter, dated October 24, 2007, 8:34 A.M., written by Ingrid to her mother and her family, "on a morning overcast, like my spirit." In twelve pages filled with a regular, cramped hand, with no space left blank and no words altered, Ingrid, "weary of suffering" and tempted to yield to despair, tries to put the essential into words.
That deeply moving letter, published here in its entirety, is an impassioned declaration of love to her family, her children, and all those dear to her, and at the same time a magnificent defense of liberty. From the depths of the jungle, she appeals to humanity, sharing her deep feelings for France, which championed her cause, and praising the United States and the great spirit of the Founding Fathers that created that nation. "When Lincoln defended the right to life and the freedom of the black slaves of America…Many economic and political interests were considered more important than the life and liberty of a handful of blacks. But Lincoln was victorious, and today the priority of human life over economic and political interests has become part of the culture of that nation."
This is Ingrid Betancourt. With a rare and lucid intelligence, this imprisoned woman at the edge of the abyss speaks of love and liberty. Unquestionably, her letter will stand as one of the great texts of history. It is this universal resonance that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, personally engaged in the fight for Betancourt's release, evokes in the foreword to this book. For his generosity we are infinitely thankful.
Ingrid Betancourt's message could not go unanswered. From her home in New York, her twenty-two-year-old daughter Mélanie, who has rallied public opinion and governments to save her mother since she was sixteen, along with her brother Lorenzo, also put pen to paper. The two children, who sent messages to their mother over Colombian radio night after night, hoping that she might hear them, have written a dignified and poignant letter to her in an attempt to counter her captors' barbarity, and to offer their mother a lifeline: "Let our words, which come to you drip by drip over the radio, be your energy. Let our thoughts, which we send to you in secret, be your comfort. We will not forsake you, Mama."
On January 10, 2008, two Colombian women—Clara Rojas, Ingrid Betancourt's campaign manager, who was captured with her in 2002, and former congresswoman Consuelo González—were released by FARC to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, an event that has revived hope for Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages. The simultaneous publication of this book in a number of countries is an act of urgency. It hopes to rally the conscience of the entire world to obtain as soon as possible, through humanitarian accords and through all the diplomatic negotiation possible, the freedom of Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages who have been imprisoned in the jungle for the past ten years.[1] The two "Letters to My Mother" printed here, writings evoking a hell on earth that exists here and now, writings straight from the heart, not only tell the terrible drama of these Colombian hostages but also encompass all the suffering and all the grandeur that is mankind.
DOMINIQUE SIMONNET
January 2008
Notes
[1] Ingrid Betancourt was rescued by the Colombian military on July 2, 2008. She was among fifteen hostages, including three American military contractors, airlifted to freedom.
