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Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, after a long silence, during a virtual talk before the Truth Commission, spoke of her kidnapping and gave some details of what she lived through in the more than seven years of captivity in the hands of the Farc, she said. Details of Operation Jaque through which she was released, she referred to corruption, which she said is the origin of what has happened in Colombia throughout its history, and also gave stitches on the political current situation of the country.
Betancourt’s statements They were given at an invitation from the Truth Commission to make an ethical and political reflection on kidnapping, but also as a space of contribution to the truth. In a narrative sense, about his kidnapping he affirmed that it “does not expire” and that the release does not end.
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The former candidate began her speech by pointing out that the only way to advance peace is through an institutional framework, while highlighting the role of the Truth Commission.
“Lies are the weapon of war, lies are used by the powerful and the violent to rewrite the history of our country (…) The Truth Commission is this space that is given to citizens so that they record what happened without interference, without history being rewritten through official versions that are not consistent with reality.
Betancourt was kidnapped for 6 years, 4 months and 9 days. It all began in the old demilitarized zone, near San Vicente del Caguán on February 23, 2002 and although she was released in July 2008, Ingrid assured that “the kidnapping does not expire and does not end with the release.”
Lies are the weapon of war, lies are used by the powerful and the violent to rewrite the history of our country
When recounting that experience, he described it as torture and added that “the kidnapped person dies slowly”, “there is dismemberment of the identity and an annulment of the human being.”
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Betancourt said that everyone can transform and change and that this is valid for those who kidnapped them, that is, the FARC. At this point, she said that she was struck by the difficulty they have in talking about the kidnapping, not all of them, she clarified, but that. “They try to make up the truth to try to present it from a less cruel perspective.”
When Father Francisco de Roux, who moderated the meeting, asked him if they (the FARC) were aware of the seriousness of what they were doing, he answered yes, and that there were many guerrillas who asked him for forgiveness. “Guilt, conscience mortified them, I think some mortified them and they tried not to have contact, to be far away.”
Betancourt compared the situation of kidnapping where one is isolated and without rights in a power relationship where the other is armed, with the poverty that some Colombians live: “Poverty is a hermetically closed space, those who do not have resources are as if they lived in the jungle, they won’t hear them ”.
Ingrid Betancourt was released in Operation Jaque in July 2008.
Héctor Fabio Zamora / TIME
The former presidential candidate also said that there is a crisis of the truth and at this point she referred to what happened with her kidnapping. Assured that of everything he lived there is a suffering that is above all: lies. And she said that being a victim of lies and the distortion of those facts was devastating for her and her family.
He also made a reflection on fear, which he said is a human component that explains all the dramas and tragedies in Colombia, and at this point he alluded to the Farc, pointing out that after the peace process they expected recognition or gratitude because they made peace.
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“I think that for the guerrillas there is the fear of getting off their pedestal, of what they believe they have legitimately conquered and that is going to take time for them to understand that the world that they designed, that they remember that that world was imposed. Of what they accuse the States, they replied with the same corruption, they were like a distorted mirror of what they wanted to combat.
Finally, Betancourt spoke of what he said is one of the most serious problems in the country: corruption, which in addition to fighting against it was one of his flags as a congressman and as a presidential candidate. “War is an instrument of impunity that disguises corruption (…) with peace we enter to see the royal curtain, the problem is that corruption created war ”.
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