Colombian Hostage Relives Rescue Posted on July 3rd
8:53am UK, Thursday July 03, 2008
Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt has said she was as shocked as her rebel captors when she and 14 other hostages were freed by government soldiers.
Ingrid Betancourt is reunited with her mother
The troops had gained the trust of Farc guerrillas by posing as aid workers who were supposedly going to transport the hostages to a new location.
But as they took off in a helicopter they revealed their true identities - to the joy of the captives and the horror of two of the rebels on board the aircraft.
One of the guerrillas captured had been her chief tormentor during her six years of captivity, during some of which she was forced to sleep with a chain round her neck.
After landing at a Bogota air base, a pale but smiling Ms Betancourt relived her dramatic rescue.
She said: “We were forced to get on the helicopter handcuffed, which was very humiliating.
“Then, all of a sudden, they disarmed the two guerrillas who were on the helicopter with us and the chief of the operation shouted, ‘We are the Colombian army and you are free!’
“The helicopter almost crashed because we all started clapping and screaming and jumping up and down.”
Ms Betancourt thanked Colombia’s army for what she called its audacious and “impeccably executed” rescue.
She also thanked a captive army nurse who helped her survive her ordeal, which was marked by malnutrition, insect bites and jungle diseases. The nurse, William Perez, was rescued in the same operation.
Ms Betancourt, 46, recalled seeing the Farc commander who had held her and others hostage for the last four years suddenly stripped of his guns.
“I saw this guerrilla commander, who had so often been cruel to us, on the floor,” she said. “But I did not feel happiness. I felt sad.”
The entire operation took 22 minutes and 13 seconds, said General Freddy Padilla, head of Colombia’s armed forces. The two rebels disarmed aboard the helicopter were in custody.
Ms Betancourt was snatched during her 2002 campaign for the presidency, in which she ran on an anti-corruption platform.
The rescue, carried out without a shot fired in the southern jungle province of Guaviare, is a huge victory for President Alvaro Uribe, an anti-guerrilla hardliner who has used billions of dollars in US aid to push the rebels on to the defensive, cut crime and spur economic growth.
The other hostages freed included three Americans - Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes - who were captured in 2003 after their light aircraft crashed in the jungles while on an anti-narcotics operation, and several Colombian security personnel.
She thanked her former political rival Mr Uribe for rescuing her and praised his record in office, although she said she still hoped to become president herself one day.