By Fausto Triana, Prensa Latina,
Paris : After several apologetic statements about the Colombian government and the army, ex FARC prisoner Ingrid Betancourt qualified the situation in that South American country and decided to stay in France
Released on July 2 during a military operation that, according to Bogota, took place after painstaking intelligence work, Betancourt arrived on Friday in Paris, where she has been honored.
The former presidential candidate, a French-Colombian citizen who has two children from her first marriage with Fabrice Delayoe, admitted that her own family begged her to stay in France for the time being.
She told TV5 Monde that her relatives are scared and told her, “We have suffered too much for you and we have the right to ask you not to go to Colombia for fear of an attack.”
“I think we have to go calmly. The fact that I am not in Colombia is not dramatic. I will return, but maybe at a time when the crisis is less palpable,” she stressed.
In statements to Radio France International (RFI) and the Christian magazine Pelerin, Betancourt noted that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe must change “that radical, extremist vocabulary, of hatred.”
“For Uribe, the end of the FARC is the reestablishment of peace in Colombia. For me, Colombia’s peace needs social change,” she noted.
She added that the Colombian president regards the crisis as a problem of national security, of conflict, while she considers it a conflict of social violence that causes insecurity.
Betancourt, who was a FARC prisoner for more than six years, underwent a medical checkup last Saturday.
She was ratified as an Illustrious Citizen of Paris and will be decorated with the Legion of Honor of France on July 14, a National Day that marks the storming of the Bastille.
Over the next few days, she will visit the Sanctuary of Lourdes. She is waiting for the Vatican to announce the date when Pope Benedict XVI will receive her.