Betancourt

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September 25, 2010
Heard on All Things Considered

Ingrid Betancourt's Six Years In The Jungle

by NPR Staff

GUY RAZ, host: Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
When Ingrid Betancourt walked into our studios this past week, the first thing that struck me was her size. She is very small, soft-spoken and almost fragile. And yet for six years, shemanaged to withstand torture, deprivation and isolation as a prisoner of the Colombian terrorist group, the FARC.
The story began in 2002 when Betancourt was running for president of Colombia. She was traveling to a remote village to campaign when she was stopped by a group of armed men. She had been warned the area was controlled by the FARC but figured she'd be safe. She was wrong. Betancourt wastaken prisoner and brought deep into a makeshift prison camp inside the Amazon jungle. Her captors treated her and the other prisoners like animals.
Ms. INGRID BETANCOURT: (Reading) The meal arrived as I got back to the cage: flour, water and sugar. That evening, I huddled in my corner during the hours of that night without sleep and during the days that followed. My entire being undertook a curiouspath that led to the hibernation of my body and soul, waiting for freedom like the coming of spring.
RAZ: That's Ingrid Betancourt reading from her new book about her time in captivity. It's called "Even Silence Has an End." And this is her story.
Ms. BETANCOURT: At the beginning, I thought this was going to be for a couple of weeks, then I thought perhaps a couple of months, because then Irealized it was just lingering. And I said, okay, perhaps until the end of the presidential campaign. And then when a year went on and I thought, my God, this is a year now, so it's going to be long. And it lasted for six and a half years.
RAZ: You were brought - initially brought deep into the jungle, and you were moved around during your time. But you were in one main prison camp for much of thattime. Could you describe what it was like?
Ms. BETANCOURT: Okay. We were 10 hostages confined in a very small space, surrounded with barbed wire. And we had to live with people we didn't know -men and women all together. We had to share a little space where we were allowed to do our, you know, bathing, and it was like the toilet spot. And that space was one of the problems we had, because we weretoo many people for too small space and it triggered all kind of confrontation.
I think that the FARC was trying to break the unity of the group. It was one of their target because they were afraid we could rebel. So the life there was not only difficult because of the space, because of the lack of food, because of the lack of information, but also because we were forced to share that space in asituation that was hard for everyone.
RAZ: And surrounded by what you describe as this vastness, of the vast jungle. I mean, it was relatively easy to escape, and you actually tried to escape five times. The problem, you write, was what then. How do you...
Ms. BETANCOURT: It was very difficult to escape. I mean, we were surrounded by guards. We did it sometimes and we succeeded to just go outto that jungle. And we discovered that the jungle was another prison. Over that ring of security they had, it was impossible to get out.
RAZ: After your, I believe it was your fifth and final attempt, when you were unsuccessful, you were beaten, you were chained. What happened to you?
Ms. BETANCOURT: It was a moment of agony because I was chained to a tree by the neck 24 hours a day. I wasforbidden to talk to my fellow hostages. I was in a position where everything was denied to me. I mean, everything. If I wanted to drink some water, I had to ask permission. And when it was raining, they could put me out and I was under the pouring rain with no shelter. And if I want to go pee, I had to ask permission, and sometimes they would deny the permission or they would just tell me to relieve...