Background

Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio was born on the 25th of December, in 1961 Bogotá, Colombia. The daughter of Colombia's former ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and a well-known social activist, Gabriel Betancourt and former Miss Colombia who later served in Congress, Yolanda Pulecio, she was raised privileged in France. When she was thirteen years old her family returned to Colombia.

Education

Ingrid Betancourt studied at a private school in France and a boarding school in England. She then completed the Liceo Francés, a high school in Bogota. Soon after that, she returned to France where she attended the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, known as Sciences Po, an elite higher education institute, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.

Ingrid Betancourt received an Honorary degree from Universite de Montreal.

Career

In Colombia Ingrid Betancourt tentatively began her career in politics by becoming her mother's advisor during her senatorial campaign in 1990. After the campaign, she received a job at the finance ministry and later at commerce. During her three-year tenure in government service, she became aware of the harsh realities of Colombian politics. Drug money lined the pockets of politicians, blocking a number of reforms, and local officials often siphoned off government funds before they could be applied to housing or other projects.

In 1994, Ingrid resigned her position and stood for parliament as a candidate for the governing Liberal Party. A staunch defender of freedom and human rights, her efforts during her period in public office focused on fostering democracy and social justice, the fight against corruption, drug trafficking, and violence, in pursuit of a different, more promising future for the children and youth of Colombia.

Betancourt launched a campaign against a government arms contract to purchase outdated weapons, and later, when it was revealed that the newly elected president, Ernesto Samper, had received campaign money from the Cali drug cartel, she worked to expose the affair. She also came face to face with the Rodriguez brothers, the principal leaders of the Cali drug cartel, who informed her that they had contributed to Samper's campaign fund and that they also provided funds for many other members of Congress. This meeting led her to believe that corruption permeated all levels of the Colombian government.

Frustrated with the corruption of the existing political parties, Ingrid Betancourt abandoned the Liberal Party in 1998 and stood for the Senate for the Green Oxygen Party. She also decided to run for a seat in the upper house. She won the election with the highest vote total ever achieved for a Colombian senate seat, but her attempts to push forward environmental, housing, and media ownership legislation ran into fierce opposition. Betancourt's most radical piece of legislation recommended replacing Colombia's Congress with a new legislative body. She resigned office to stand in the presidential elections for the New Colombia Movement in 2002.

To demonstrate loyalty to her cause, in February 2002, Ingrid traveled to San Vincente, a territory occupied by FARC, who since 1996 had fought against the national government to reign out the power. In spite of the fact that President Pastrana discouraged Ingrid from making this trip and refused to give her an escort, she voiced a moral duty to be present among those people in difficulty.

Unfortunately for Betancourt, on the 23rd of February, 2002, she was kidnapped by the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), along with Clara Rojas, her friend, and director of her electoral campaign. Immediately, the international community, led by French President Jacques Chirac and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan, began a concerted international campaign to pressure all factions in Colombia for her release.

From the time of Betancourt's kidnapping in February 2002 until her release in July 2008, there had been numerous attempts at negotiations, all of which failed. She was held somewhere in the jungles of Colombia, along with other kidnap victims. On the 2nd of July, 2008, Colombia's Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos called a press conference to announce the rescue of Betancourt and 14 other captives.

In 2008, Ingrid traveled to the United States, where she presented the keynote address at a United Nations conference on the plight of victims of terrorism, calling for a centralized database and publicize victims' needs. She stated that she will now dedicate herself to informing the world about the reality of FARC and its cruel hostage-taking policy. Betancourt has not ruled out a return to the

Colombian political scene. While she has said that, France is her home, she also is proud to be Colombian.

In 2010 Betancourt’s memoirs, which chronicled her years in captivity, were published as Même le silence a un fin, Even Silence Has an End. In 2014, she published a second work, The Blue Line, about the disappearances in Argentina during the Dirty War from 1976 to 1983. Her first work, Sí Sabía came out in 1996.

Achievements

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  Ingrid Betancourt is an international symbol of the human spirit, bravery, and dignity, she is keen to inspire others to fight for democracy and peace and is an advocate of human rights. She has received numerous awards and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.
  
  Betancourt’s kidnapping has had major repercussions all over the world and, as a result of international mobilization in favor of her release, she has been named Honorary Citizen of more than a thousand cities in over twenty countries.
  
  In 2004, Ingrid was awarded the Dutch Cross of Resistance, which was collected by her mother and daughter. Support committees were also created, forming the International Federation of Committees for Ingrid Betancourt, whose first general assembly was held in Paris in 2005.
  
  Ingrid was named Honorary President of the International Congress of Green Parties held in São Paulo when she was still held captive, once released Ingrid Betancourt was decorated with the Rank of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy during the celebrations of the French National Holiday on 14th July 2008 and has been bestowed with the Women's World Award as, Woman of the Year 2008. She was granted a brief audience with Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

    (In the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency...)

    2010
  • Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia

    (Until Death Do Us Part is the deeply personal story of a ...)

    2001
  • Letters to My Mother

    (On December 1, 2007, during the arrest of several guerill...)

    2008
  • The Blue Line

    (Buenos Aires, the 1970s. Julia inherits from her grandmot...)

    2014
  • Sí sabía 1996

Religion

Betancourt was raised in the Catholic faith, prayed daily on a wooden rosary which she made in captivity. On the 21st of July, 2008, Ingrid and her family made a pilgrimage to Lourdes to give thanks and to pray for her captors and those who remained hostage.

Views

Ingrid Betancourt’s message to all people is clear dialogue and democracy are the way to make a stand and to preserve both relationships and lives during conflicts.

Quotations: "The relationship with time changes when you're captive".

"In captivity, one loses every way of acting over little details which satisfy the essentials of life. Everything has to be asked for: permission to go to the toilet, permission to ask a guard something, permission to talk to another hostage - to brush your teeth, use toilet paper, everything is a negotiation".

"In the jungle, faith also became something very real; it helped me to understand what was happening to me and changed my questions".

"The only thing I've settled in my mind is that I want to forgive, and forgiveness comes with forgetting".

"You need tremendous spirituality to stop yourself falling into the abyss".

"Reconciliation is a national decision that has to be debated and a consensus made among Colombians. Reconciliation is a decision that you take in your heart. If there is not this kind of approach, there is always the impression that you have done a bad deal, that the other side is having a better deal than you have - unless you understand that you are the generation that has to stop the fight. And stopping the fight is accepting not to fight back".

"You are a free woman, and then you become a prisoner, and you receive all kinds of orders. Sit here, stand there. That's it. You just, you don't have the possibility of even moving to take your bag without asking for permission".

"I called my party the Green Oxygen party because Colombians were choking".

"We're humans. Why always turn human attitude into political behaviours? I hate that".

"It's not easy to talk about things that are still hurting".

"I have to forget in order to find peace in my soul and be able to forgive".

"I continue with the illusion of serving Colombia. Only God knows if it were to be from the presidency".

"When you have a chain around your neck, you have to keep your head down and try to accept your fate without succumbing entirely to humiliation, without forgetting who you are".

"After six years without seeing one, I love just seeing a smile - every smile I see gives me hope".

"More than a victim, I am a survivor of a dehumanization process".

"In a kidnapping, you leave behind a lot of your baggage, like arrogance and stubbornness".

"We have to be aware of our fragilities as human beings - when we see cruelty, to understand that in certain conditions, we could be cruel, too".

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Ingrid Betancourt is small, slight, and well-coutured.

Connections

Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio was married twice. Her first marriage was to Fabrice Delloye but they divorced in 1990. Together they have two children, Melanie and Lorenzo. Her second marriage was to Juan Carlos LeCompte but it ended in divorce too in 2011.

Father:

Gabriel Betancourt

Gabriel Betancourt Mejía was born on the 27th of April in 1918 in Medellín and died on the 23th of March in 2002 in Bogotá. He was a Colombian diplomat and ambassador. Gabriel Betancourt served as the assistant director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and as minister of education from 1966 to 1968, positions that moved the family between Colombia and France.

Mother:

Yolanda Pulecio

Yolanda Pulecio was born on the 31st of December, 1939 in Colombia. She is a diplomat and human rights activist. Yolanda Pulecio has spent most of her adult life serving Colombia. Since 1958 she has helped street children through her NGO, the Bogotá Children's Shelter, which received the United Nations Vienna Civil Society Award. She also served for many years as a Member of Congress and diplomat.

Ex-husband:

Fabrice Delloye

Fabrice Delloye was a commercial attache at France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Daughter:

Melanie Betancourt

Son:

Lorenzo Betancourt

Ex-husband:

Juan Carlos Lecomte