THE KIDNAPPED NOBEL CANDIDATE
By Alfredo Zamudio
This article has been published in the norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet".
Few candidates to the Nobel Peace Prize have suffered the same destiny as Ingrid Betancourt, a new voice from Colombia. After 2 years as a hostage of the guerrillas in her country, she holds fast to the idea that she is a civilian, not a part of the war, and that both her government and the armed groups must keep the civilian population out of the war.
The violence in Colombia has cost thousands of human lives. Over 500,000 homicides have been committed during the last twenty years, with about 30,000 annually in last few years. What is not as well known, is that “only” 8,000 of these annual deaths are due to the armed conflict directly.. The violence has also resulted in 2.7 million internally displaced people. The colombian national bank estimates that 67% of the population is living under the poverty level.
The term “low intensity warfare” finds its model in this country. Since president Uribes was elected president last year, there has been an increasing confrontation between his government and the guerrillas; this intensified warfare is perhaps one of the explanations behind the recent agreement between the FARC and ELN, to create a common military front against the government. At the same time, the right-wing paramilitary forces are in the midst of a dialogue with the authorities, where the questions at stake are demilitarization and amnesty. These discussions have received much criticism by the UN´s High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has expressed his concern that this dialogue could lead to an amnesty to what the UNHCHR defines as war crimes. Similarly, FARC guerrillas are also attempting to make a political comeback to the international arena, having contact with James LeMoyne, Kofi Annan’s special envoyee to Colombia. Their first meeting is scheduled to be held in Brazil. FARC has earlier expressed resistance to any participation of the UN, accussing the UN of beingan American political instrument.
Colombians ask foreign visitors why there is not more international presence in their country. One of the answers may be found in the slow bestiality of the colombian conflict. The poet has said that you can die so slowly that you think you are alive. The misery of Colombia happens in silence and it has happened over so many years that the world has long ago given up trying to understand, letting Colombia become a country to roll eyes over, assuming it will always be like this, the land where the tragedy has become the boredom of death.
It requires an effort to the see the whole picture. Decades of internal conflicts have transformed Colombia to a mixture of suffering, suffocating everything else. Ironically, at the same time there is a well functioning society, with democratic institutions, strong universities, free press and solid intellectual capacities. The drug traffic contributes to the economy with several billion dollars a year and it is also FARC and the paramilitary’s most important financial source.
Changing Colombian’s view about corruption and giving them hope about possibilities for change through democratic and peaceful processes, has been attempted several times, sometimes with surprisingly good results. One of these remarkable examples is the transformation of the city of Bogotá, where in just a few years, without a significant increase in the amount of police force, homicides rates have been reduced by about one half . The key to the success in Bogota lies in the theory that human beings must recover trust in one another and see themselves and the others as ruled by ethics and not only by sanctions.
Colombians are frequently discussing what is possible to do with their country. The suffering of the civilian population is very visible. In these waters, the voice of Ingrid Betancourt has become a voice which is not easily ignored. She married young with a French diplomat led quiet family life for several years before homesickness and her desire to do something for her country, become so strong that she divorced and took her children with her back to Colombia. There she started a career which has made her the guerrilla’s most famous hostage, and at the same time a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Her road has been remarkable also from a Colombian point of view. She began as an advisor for the government Gaviria. In this post she learned how the political systems function and she gained the necessary political experience. She has said that she found here the motivation for running for the parliament and later the senate. She ran with somewhat naive and direct campaigns. In the senate she managed to show how and why the corruption in Colombia should be fought. She won respect from the influential media sympathizing with the ruling political forces. When the peace process between president Pastrana and FARC was headed into the abyss, she decided to run for the presidency. Her political campaign had few resources.
While campaigning in a guerrilla controlled area, during the days when the peace process was over, she was kidnapped by FARC. Earlier that day she had been denied access to the presidential helicopter which was headed to her destination. Some critics says she must take the responsibility for being kidnapped. Her family says that moving freely in her country is not an act of irresponsability, but a basic right of any citizen. Now she has been FARC’s hostage for eighteen months. In a video FARC recently made public, she says that she does not want to be released as part of a humanitarian agreement between the guerrillas and the government. She says she is a civilian and should not be part of a prisoner exchange between armed groups. As a prisoner she demands to be freed by the guerrillas themselves or by the armed forces. It is now clear that her voice will be important in Colombia in the years to come. Several have nominated her to the Nobel Peace Prize. If Ingrid Betancourt wins the prize this year, as did Carl von Ossietzky (1936) and Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) before her, it will be the third time the prize is given to someone in captivity.
(c)opyright: Alfredo Zamudio, 2004.
Alfredo.Zamudio@netcom.no
