Living in France, it has been impossible not get caught up in the Betancourt case. If you happen to live somewhere else, and managed to miss the story, Ingrid Betancourt is the French-Colombian former presidential candidate in Colombia who was kidnapped by FARC, The armed guerrilla in Colombia, 6 years ago. Betancourt was the FARC’s most valuable hostage, and a powerful base for negotiations. There have been massive campaigns in Colombia, France, and elsewhere to negotiate for her release. Given the FARC’s weakening situation with massive dropouts of rebel soldiers and the death of the former leader Manuela Marulanda and three members of the secretariat, Betancourt was probably their last high card to play.
She was freed one week ago in a spectacular rescue operation where Colombian army agents infiltrated the FARC and convinced the rebel in charge of the hostages that they should be moved to the new nr 1 guy, Alfonso Cano. Once the hostages were inside the helicopter, the accompanying rebels were neutralized, and the army agents revealed their identity. Not a single shot was fired. Not a single dollar changed hands. Officially, that is. Swiss radio has claimed that according to “reliable sources”, a ransom of 20 million dollars was paid for the release of the hostages, and the check was supposedly written by the US government (3 of the released hostages were US contractors on a counter narcotics intelligence mission). The “operation” could merely have been a PR stunt to build up confidence for president Uribe and to calm worried investors to start pumping money into the emerging but unsafe market of Colombia.
The only reason I have to believe in this theory is that the whole operation sounds a little bit to perfect and Hollywood like. Speaking of Hollywod, several movie scripts about the Betancourt story are already in the pipeline. I can picture Benicio del Toro in the role of an infiltrating Colombian army agent. Too bad Raul Julia isn’t alive to play the part of hostage guard nr 1. What a box office failure though, if it somehow is proven before the grand premiere, that the whole operation was indeed scripted. Sometimes reality actually beats fiction. In this case, I will not be very surprised if, as usual, it's the other way around.
She was freed one week ago in a spectacular rescue operation where Colombian army agents infiltrated the FARC and convinced the rebel in charge of the hostages that they should be moved to the new nr 1 guy, Alfonso Cano. Once the hostages were inside the helicopter, the accompanying rebels were neutralized, and the army agents revealed their identity. Not a single shot was fired. Not a single dollar changed hands. Officially, that is. Swiss radio has claimed that according to “reliable sources”, a ransom of 20 million dollars was paid for the release of the hostages, and the check was supposedly written by the US government (3 of the released hostages were US contractors on a counter narcotics intelligence mission). The “operation” could merely have been a PR stunt to build up confidence for president Uribe and to calm worried investors to start pumping money into the emerging but unsafe market of Colombia.
The only reason I have to believe in this theory is that the whole operation sounds a little bit to perfect and Hollywood like. Speaking of Hollywod, several movie scripts about the Betancourt story are already in the pipeline. I can picture Benicio del Toro in the role of an infiltrating Colombian army agent. Too bad Raul Julia isn’t alive to play the part of hostage guard nr 1. What a box office failure though, if it somehow is proven before the grand premiere, that the whole operation was indeed scripted. Sometimes reality actually beats fiction. In this case, I will not be very surprised if, as usual, it's the other way around.
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3 comments:
In Colombia we said: "todo lo del pobre es robado" (everything own by the 'poor' is stolen): No matter what the Colombian government would have done, people would had always tend (or want) to believe they are lying: I see a reaction of people that cannot believe that such a coup can be done by Colombians. The same type of psychological reaction of some that still do not believe that the US put a man on the moon in 1969. Thus all sorts of parallel universe explanations must be found.
There are more reasons to believe in the official Colombian version than in this strange note that appeared in RSR. 1. The radio station signed an article on that no journalist signed, making the note look like an editorial of sorts (which was of course picked up by European media and generated a little firestorm of its own).
2. After the official versions from the American, Suisse, French and Colombian governments saying they did not pay a ransom what could we count on the Suisse radio station sources? Lets guess: the 'anncol' (FARC's communitaion agency) who’s strong links in Europe and Switzerland have been visible and who’s campaign to de-legitimate Uribe’s government is their constant; OR the famous Suisse delegate for the Colombian conflict (Jean-Pierre Goutard) who's recent link with the FARC have been proved (brought US $ 500 million in 2001 for the FARC recently found in Costa Rica) or perhaps just any Uribe’s hater (which off course is anonymous).
3. The very worrisome sloppiness of RSR note when they cite a "reliable source". Even if we assume that the RSR has one of the best source on the FARC, how come we did not know about it before? And why the RSR does not write something like " that was the source that confirmed this on that date" to remind us that indeed they do have one of the best sources. I mean, even a blog will not be as sloppy on such a transcendent matter!
4. Ingrid Betancourt herself (who’s not tied to any government and actually politically contrary to the Colombian one) said she believed the rescue have been completely real; her testimony is backed by the public video of the rescue.
5. Even the ‘anncol’ (FARC’s communication) said they “can’t trust in Bogota’s administration”, since they were “surprised” with the fact that the RESCUE was done while European delegates were having contact with their leader Alfonso Cano. Leaving out of the question a payment to the FARC organization as itself (by themselves).
6. Even more, Santos, the Colombia defense minister, has reminded folks that it is a policy of the Colombian government to pay for info that leads to capture of FARC leaders or to the rescue of hostages. Thus they would have no problem in admitting this if it was today's case. In fact in the past Santos says that they even paid on other opportunities more than the 20 millions announced by the Swiss without a receipt. Ironically he added that 20 million for what happened few days ago would have been a true bargain.
7. RSR informer was anyway ill informed. To begin with the operation cost is probably close to 20 millions. Or does anyone think that the helicopters and their equipment came for free, or that the participants are not expecting a nice bonus for their success? Of course some informants had to be paid, had to be offered guarantees or how do you think that the Colombian Intelligence managed to infiltrate the FARC. Indeed Colombia paid 20 million, or even much more than that, just in logistics!
8. Finally, an anonymous source "close to Colombian military intelligence" told CNN that “Money was offered to two or three couriers, members of FARC, in order to persuade them to switch sides and ferry bogus orders to guerrillas on the ground to hand over the hostages, pretending such orders came from FARC commanders”.
This face us to a very sad conclusion: FARC supporters or simply people who cant believe in great accomplishments now try to degrade the (amazingly) successful infiltration operation that the Colombian army undergo for months (off course using every resources they have, including the ones coming from the US since 6 years ago through the antinarcotics program called ‘plan-Colombia’) and call it a ransom payment to the FARC by twisting some normal logistics for an infiltration operation for the sake of their shabby argument; they want people to forget about the credits that should be given to Uribe’s decision to undergo an infiltration (instead of following Betancourt's mother request), or the work done by the soldiers that had to ‘sleep with the enemy’.
Happily, even if some few anti-Hollywood guys cant give credits to the Colombian government because they cant "believe” what they have done, what matters at the end is that the hostages will be looking at the movie of their rescue and that Oliver Stone’s pro-FARC movie project is very likely messed up. Maybe at the end of the day the operation wasn’t financed by Hollywood and what becomes more evident is this story was a real rescue with real soldiers in the battlefield (not actors like in Chavez's rescues), infiltrating and fooling a real guerrilla, using (also) real money to finally fool the people in charge of the hostages (who jumped into the helicopter by their own will) and are in jail.
Yes, Hollywood have found a "pink-end” story to tell; I hope it gets even more pinky for my country.
You know who I am.
points: 3,6 and 7 from http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2008/07/ingrid-betancourt-faked-her-rescue.htm
anncol declaration from : http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/judicial/articuloimpreso-hora-del-cara-cara
To assume that money played a greater part in this story than was told is a natural speculation given the spectacular ease with which FARC's most valuable hostage was freed, and given the popularity boost that such a victory over the constant shame of the nation would give to the regime who carries it out, and should not be discarded as propaganda from FARC supporters, Uribe haters, or as you put it, "people who can't believe in great accomplishments"??
And I don't know where you got it from, it sure couldn't have been me, but no, Hollywood probably didn't pay the ransom. I'm sure there's nobody who would disagree with you on that point :)
A "great" deal on the story? well is pretty much clear that this was not a cheap operation but most of the credits are not for the money involved but the tough decisions that were made, the successful strategy and the huge risks that the colombian soldiers had to take in order to accomplish the un-thinkable, don’t you think?; After all the updates and news (RSR cheap note included), I wouldn’t say this was "spectacularly easy" neither believe that some government paid for a ransom.
Where did I get what from? I hope you didn’t take personally my comments on the sources of the twisted versions of the facts: I only did a hypothesis on how this RSR came up with this clearly bad-intentioned sloppy note.
On the other side I also made a comment on how people would tend to believe this twisted versions for strange reasons: "The only reason I have to believe in this theory is that the whole operation sounds a little bit to perfect and Hollywood like." Fortunately reality can be more spectacular than Hollywood sometimes, but off course we can always prefer to see the drama in a Rambo-like movie (but as in this type of movies, in this case it was very badly produced by RSR alias 'anncol').
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