| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Paris denies orchestrating bid to free Farc hostage |
| 2003-07-25 |
| Capitulation to terrorists, underhanded deals, secret plane flights, denials, must be the French again: France has been accused of disregarding the Colombian government to try to negotiate the release of a politician who has been held hostage by Marxist guerrillas for more than a year. Paris has denied the accusations but has admitted it sent a military transport aircraft to the Brazilian-Colombian border earlier this month on a "humanitarian" mission that has not been fully explained. By coincidence, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, was in Colombia yesterday to sign an anti-drugs cooperation agreement, also involving Britain and Spain. Whilst in Bogota, M. Sarkozy was attempting to smooth over a three-way row between France, Colombia and Brazil. The dispute centres on the fate of Ingrid Betancourt, 41, a Colombian anti-drugs and corruption campaigner who stood as the Green candidate in the Colombian presidential election last year. Mme Betancourt - also a French citizen and the former wife of a French diplomat - was taken hostage by the Marxist Farc guerrillas while campaigning in a remote area in February last year. Her case has become a cause célÚbre in France, not least because she is a friend - and former pupil - of Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister. Now the plot thickens. According to the Brazilian press, France made a spectacular but unsuccessful attempt earlier this month to negotiate Mme Betancourt’s release. The weekly newspaper Carta Capital - citing Brazilian government sources - said that a French C-130 Hercules transport aircraft flew to a town in the Brazilian Amazon, 600 miles from the Colombian border. The newspaper alleged that there were weapons on board, which the French government hoped to exchange with the Farc guerrillas for Mme Betancourt. Can you say "Arms for hostages"? Those allegations have been dismissed as a "tissue of inanities" by Alain Rouquié, the French ambassador to Brazil, who has, none the less, been called in by the Brazilian authorities to explain what is going on. Daniel Parfait, the French ambassador to Bogota, confirmed that the Hercules had flown to the Brazilian town of Manaus on a "humanitarian operation". He denied there had been contact between France and the guerrillas. "FARC? Never heard of them." According to the Brazilian press account, the French officials aboard the C-130 claimed diplomatic immunity to prevent the aircraft from being searched by the Brazilian military. The newspaper said that the 16 or so French officials and crew on the plane included Pierre-Henri Guignard, who is the deputy head of the private office of the Foreign Minister, M. de Villepin. The presence of such a senior official on a "humanitarian" mission is unusual, to say the least. M. Guignard’s involvement has not been denied by the French Foreign Ministry. Interesting Colombian officials have described the incident as a "very serious affair". The plot has been thickened by comments made by Mme Betancourt’s sister, Astrid. She told the French news agency, Agence France Presse, that she had received a message early this month that Ingrid needed medical help. She said she contacted the French authorities, who told her that a plane was flying to Manaus in Brazil, with a "medical team" on board. Uh huh, bet they had lots of heavy crates full of "medical supplies". Astrid Betancourt said she had waited for nine days - between 5 and 14 July - on the Brazilian-Colombian border, hoping her sister might be released, but heard no more. M. Sarkozy told journalists when he arrived in Bogota this week that there had been "a glimmer of hope" at that time but that the "hopes had been dashed". He added: "The liberation of Ingrid Betancourt remains a priority for the French government, but the less said about it the better." Colombian authorities have long been annoyed by the pressure from France on behalf of Mme Betancourt. They point out that Farc holds more than 70 political and military hostages - and an estimated 3,000 hostages in all, including several foreigners. The Marxist guerrillas are demanding the release of their own prisoners, held by the Colombian authorities. Officials in Bogota insist negotiations with Farc must take in all the hostages. Individual deals would be counter-productive, they say. Privately, French officials and Mme Betancourt’s family fear the authorities are in no hurry to see the return of the former presidential candidate and senator, who campaigned vigorously against political corruption and drugs trafficking. So the Colombian’s would be happy if she died while being held, another plot twist. Mme Betancourt was born in Bogota, of a partly French family. She studied in the 1980s at the elite Parisian political academy, Science-Po, where she was a pupil of M. de Villepin. She married a French diplomat but returned to Colombia to enter politics in 1990. She campaigned - successfully - for a seat in parliament, using a campaign poster that compared her to a condom. Just as condoms were the best defence against Aids, she said, she would provide the best defence against corruption, which was the "Aids of Colombia". I guess it doesn’t translate very well. Or something. Last year, she stood as a Green candidate in the presidential election but was kidnapped by the Farc guerrillas before election day when she was campaigning in the remote south of the country. (scratches head) Why does she sound like she could just as well have been a Farc candidate. Something smells. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #5 Mme Betancourt may be the altruistic hostage of FARC. Heaven knows how corrupt Colombia is through and through. My question is still why all the covert French ops for something that still looks like a ransom deal. The French may have ultierior motives, in the line of getting the Elf and co. in there for oil. But I cannot help thinking that they would be using just one herc load of ransom to do the job. They would have to be doing lots more nefarious things besides bringing in a 20K-40K lb load of cargo just for FARC. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-7-25 11:25:49 PM |
| #4 I don't think "So do some homework before you start spinning theories" was necessary, MOM. But from her book and your other extensive sources( a noted subjective source, Yahoo - hey? have you ever heard of bias? See Rooters, Guardian, AP, LATimes et al) - refuting any future conjecture I could generate, I defer to the master(ess?) and will stop thinking...thks...not |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-7-25 11:14:58 PM |
| #3 Check your local library for "Until Death Do Us Part," by Ingrid Betancourt, published shortly before the FARC captured her. From what I gather (from her book, from reading Yahoo! news articles on Colombia, and from piecing out Colombian news via Yahoo! with my Chicago-flavored Spanish) Betancourt is no great friend of the FARC; the FARC was just glad to get their hands on any legislators as hostages; and Betancourt is especially high profile. She was campaigning in the election that ultimately led to Alvaro Uribe's defeat of Pres. Andres Pastrana's handpicked successor. Pastrana's party stood for crooked business as usual. FARC wouldn't have been able to run for years if the Colombian govt weren't as twisty as corkscrews. You can't get anything done without having to buy 37 permits, each of which requires a bribe to get it processed. One classic example: The govt tried to establish a medical clinic in a remote area for the poor. By the time the local caciques take their cuts in bribes, the clinic doesn't have enough money to install the equipment or staff the place. The drug cartels own politicians and cops; the FARC own some of these too. Betancourt deserves all the help she can get, given her raw courage in exposing these operations. So do some homework before you start spinning theories. |
| Posted by: mom 2003-7-25 9:37:12 PM |
| #2 How's this for a conspiracy theory: It is all staged. A half-french Green candidate has more in common with FARC than most of her electorate. A little arms trade helps the FARC, and gives her a good back story to help in the next election, and screws the pro-US Columbians (who don't care if she dies). All of this makes her a Parisian's wet dream, all thanks to her former amour de Villepin. She's already experienced at political theatrics, so it's not much of a stretch. |
| Posted by: jason 2003-7-25 7:28:42 PM |
| #1 Well, lets get the rumor mill a-rollin'. Dominique di Villepin has a friendship (or more) with Mme Betancourt. If she was a student in the 1980s she should be 40 to 45 years old now, so she should still be attractive to di Villepin. [this is sounding like some lower denomination TV mystery]. Being French and sentimental, or personally attached to MB, and also a govt official di Villepin takes advantage of govt assets not being used in the Ivory Coast operation and brings a bunch of ransom booty for the FARCS. Being more interested in matters of the heart, di Villepin does not think through all the ops details that can blow his scheme out of the water. And that is my take on Mme Condom Girl. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-7-25 4:40:29 PM |