Twenty years after her kidnapping, the Franco-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, hostage for six years of the Farc guerrillas, announced on Tuesday her intention to take part in the presidential election in Colombia.
"I will work tirelessly from now on, from sunrise to sunset, to be your president," she said during a press conference.
At the head of the small environmentalist party Vert Oxygène, the ex-hostage, 59, will participate in a primary organized to decide between the candidates of a centrist coalition, the Coalition of Hope.
In case of victory, she will therefore represent the center in the presidential election of May 29, a current which wants to be an alternative to the face-to-face, structuring in Colombia, between the right in power and the left, represented by the ex- mayor of Bogotá and former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, now the favorite in the polls.
"I believe in a world with a woman's vision"
“For decades we had only bad options: extreme right, extreme left.
The time has come to have a center option, ”said the candidate, who has set herself the fight against insecurity and pollution as her objectives.
"I believe in a world with a woman's vision," she added.
“Today I am here to finish what I started with many of you in 2002. With the conviction that Colombia is now ready to change course,” she said, referring to his six years of detention in the jungle.
Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped by the Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) while campaigning for the presidency.
She was rescued during a military operation and has since lived abroad, regularly staying in Colombia where she often takes part in public debate.
“Truth, Justice and Reparation”
The Franco-Colombian also spoke on Tuesday about the 36 million dollars in financial compensation ordered in early January by the American justice against the deceased Farc, for their responsibility in her kidnapping.
“We have sometimes got into the habit of thinking that asking for justice is abusive (…).
I came today to ask that every son, every daughter, every father, every mother be compensated, compensated and compensated, ”hammered the candidate.
A federal court in Pennsylvania (northeastern United States) ruled on January 4 that the ex-hostage's son - born in 1988 from his first union with Frenchman Fabrice Delloye - "is entitled to compensation of 12 million before it is tripled with attorney fees and costs,” or more than $36 million, according to his lawyers. Lawrence Betancourt, also called Lorenzo, who has American nationality, had filed a civil complaint in the United States in June 2018 against 14 former FARC officials, most of whom are presumed dead today or still armed in the jungle. .
In 2010, Ingrid Betancourt demanded compensation from the Colombian state for not having guaranteed her safety, but she gave up in the face of criticism.
“I have been accused of having been ungrateful, opportunistic, greedy (…).
But the system of corruption that reigns in our country only recognizes the rights of bandits,” she castigated, saying that, like the other victims, she expects “truth, justice and reparation” from the investigations carried out by the Peace Court, put in place by the 2016 agreement which ended a conflict of more than half a century with the Marxist guerrillas.
According to this agreement, those who confess their crimes and repair the damage caused to war victims will be able to avoid prison.
Otherwise, they risk sentences of up to twenty years in prison.
