This interview took place and was aired on Viva Voz on July 10, 2008. Jorge Gestoso – award-winning journalist/host of V-me’s original nightly interview series - conducted the interview in-person in Paris.

Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt gave V-me her first US Hispanic television interview since being rescued from more than six years of captivity in the Colombian jungle at the hands of Latin America’s largest leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

A special, which will be rebroadcast Monday July 14th at 9:00pm(ET/PT) on Viva Voz (in Spanish), also includes interviews with Betancourt’s sister, mother and a former companion in captivity.

English Transcript:

Ingrid Betancourt, a warm welcome to this program.

It’s a pleasure to be with you all here today.

How are you?

Alive, free, well, very well.

How’s your health?

It’s surprisingly well. So far, I think that all the medical examinations have turned out well, so I‘m fine.

Your captivity companion, Luis Eladio Perez, who we had the opportunity to interview, told us that, for example, that when he returned from the forest to the city, bright lights and noise bothered him.
Has that happened to you?

Yes, there is a… let’s say an adaptation issue. I can imagine what Luis Eladio might have thought.

For example, I know something similar happened to him but I did not know that it was going to happen to me. However I did know before hand that it had happen to him.
The first time that I slept on a bed, on a comfortable bed, with sheets, with a pillow — the next day I could not get out of bed because of the back pain.

Why? Where did you sleep?

I slept on the floor but on the floor - not like this - I mean, on the floor like the one we have here. A flat floor with carpet is a luxury. No this was a floor with roots, with holes, where you had roots sticking into your ribs, oh well. Then I laughed at the thought that getting out of bed caused me back pain.

And what is what you found most changed when you returned to the city? I don’t know if saying to the civilization, or to the city…

The world, the world has changed, the world that I left is not the same. Well first of all a world. The French have a very beautiful expression: you miss a person and the world seems uninhabited. I arrived at a world where my father no longer lives.
[He departed] exactly one month to the minute since I was taken hostage. Then, well… A world where there is an number of small trinkets that you handle very well. I see my nephews who have cellular phones with 80 things in them, and the “blackberries” that take pictures and move them all over the place.

But you know, I sense a world where everything could be done for the happiness of all of us, where there aren’t distresses or uncertainty.

It is very sad to think that I arrive at a world where there is a food crisis, when in fact there is food enough for the entire world to eat and food to spare.
I come to a world with an energy crisis, when we have the technology to use other sources of energy… a world in a financial crisis, at a time where so much wealth is being generated.
Then, I have the feeling… Than this is a world of pampered people. They don’t realize the happiness that they already have. They are squandering it. That is a bit of the feeling I have.

And those values, or that perception… did it changed because you changed your values after the experience of six years in captivity?

Yes, of course!! Yes, suddenly when one has had as much suffering on a daily basis, one realizes the privileges of living what I am living; that is to say, the possibility of being free. I don’t know if people realize that. I believe that people who have not lived through war cannot realize what a privilege it is to live peacefully and free. This is something that ought to be mentioned, so that we become aware, give thanks and correct our lives… so that we can move and allow those who do not have those privileges to recover them.
It hurts me to think that there continues to be people in Colombia suffering through that which I finally managed to escape
It is very important that we become aware of how fortunate we are, and also that our responsibility is to act, right?

Last December we had the opportunity to come here to Paris and speak with your sister, Astrid. In March we had the opportunity to go to Bogotá and speak with your mother, Yolanda. In May we had the opportunity to speak with your daughter, Melanie, in Washington.
How has your reintegration in the roll, of mother, daughter, sister been? Or how is going on, or it is going to be?

Well, I must say that God blessed to me with an extraordinary family. W I see the struggle they had, each one, because it was the struggle of all together ones, but was also the struggle of each with their style, their ideas, their… character.

With their ideas, their character, sometimes I say, well I feel that they are my masters, ¿do you understand me? I feel like, well… I have a lot to learn from them. Obviously I feel like I parachuted into this life and all of them have their lives and their plans. And I… my life a week ago was foreseeing maybe four more years of captivity, and suddenly freedom comes to me and falls on me and I am happy, but I know that it is time to go to my winter quarters.

What is…?

It is my family. And I have to make a life for myself again because I do not have a life of my own. I… all of them have their lives, their daily activities, their things to do and they have to continue with their lives because obviously my arrival means I stopped everything, everything they have to do. Then they have to continue with their lives and with the happiness of being together. But I also have to find a space for me. I believe at this moment I need quiet time with my family — I need time.

You and I have something in common. We are both South Americans and also French citizens.

You too? How nice!

The questions is, what happens with our South American countries? Why did France, with more established institutions and more international leverage, fight harder to get you out of the jungle as a French citizen than your fellow Colombians?

Look, I believe this has been a beautiful maturation process. I believe that we Colombians have a tremendous history of violence that has marked us. And when you live day to day between the blood and the bombs, I believe that you, maybe as a defense mechanism, become insensitive and Colombians have that tendency. We want to protect ourselves. We do not want to listen to what is happening outside, but little by little that has changed.

During the first years of captivity, you know, it was frowned upon to talk about freedom for kidnapped people. Many Colombians thought that it was an anti- patriotic act to demand our freedom. But I see today a Colombia that is very happy to be reunited. You know that a few months ago there were huge marches in Colombia asking for the liberation of the kidnapped. I believe we realized that we have to fight, that our life has … I believe the Colombians went from protecting their family life to understanding that their family life is already protected and that they have the space to fight for other people lives.
And that builds a society. I think that that is a beautiful maturation process.

We have very limited time, super limited. I am going to ask the last question to you: future plans?

First, that I love you all. But that I am going to hide away for a while, because I need to be with my family.
Second, always to be connected with the people who are suffering in Colombia. I know that they hear me. I want to tell the hostages, my companions, who are back in the forests, that I carry the cross they are carrying, every single second in my life. Day and night. I carry it, and I’m not going to stop thinking about what else we can figure out or say to anyone so that they return to freedom. Because I know, as they do, that it’s matter of time. They can no longer bear it.
Let’s say that this is the basic thing. Then thank God. I have already thanked him in all languages and in all forms, and I am going to continue thanking Him. I know that He is going to guide us all, so that we find the way of life, and the necessary spaces to make his will. And that we can serve, which is the only thing that interests me. To serve the Colombian people, anyone who might need some help, anyone who might need a voice. I didn’t have a voice for seven years, and I know how much it means when someone speaks up for you. I’m willing to do all that, because I’m grateful that they did it for me.

Ingrid Betancourt, many thanks for having been with us.

Thanks to you for being with me.

NewsHour:
See Newshour’s coverage of the Columbian hostage situation.

translation and subtitles courtesy V-Me.