Ingrid Betancourt freed

by Bazooka Joe Sun Jul 06, 2008 16:04

Colombian TV are showing bags of home made explosive (ANFO) which they claim was found at a farm outside Bogota. To keep up the momentum of the faked 'rescue' of the 13 US mercenaries and Betancourt, the government is claiming this was FARC explosives for use in 'reprisal' attacks.

I wonder where Superintendent Lennon was? He was always a dab hand at making ammonium nitrate / fuel oil explosives when required for promotional or propaganda purposes. Perhaps the Garda have been sending members to Colombia to train their counterparts in the anti-FARC forces?

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23976726....html

FARC is now up US$20 million and if US/Israeli/Colombian government want to pretend they rescued the mercenaries, so be it.

France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said in an interview published today in Le Journal du Dimanche that "no French money" was paid for Betancourt. He said, "Clearly, there was no French money". He is specific, the money was not French.

by By Concerned citizens of irc.indymedia.org Sun Jul 06, 2008 02:49

By Concerned citizens of irc.indymedia.org

In order to understand the "rescue operation" of Ingrid Betancourt and the Northrop Grumman Corporation mercenaries who were released with her, it is necessary to piece together articles published in the media, filter the content and out of this is formed a true understanding of the facts of what happened here.

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/07/98466.html

by tooth fairy Sat Jul 05, 2008 22:21

Only the most naive would think it wasn't staged and only the most innocent would think it didn't need to be.

Here's a bit of IMC global IRC chinwagging - http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/402771.html?c=on...99160

Her 2321st day was her last, on the 2323rd day since her captivity began on Feb23 2002, she found herself in Paris to help Sarkozy celebrate USA's July 4th and open his presidency of the EU. Not only do prison guards count their prisoners every day, but prisoners count their days too. Often many times a day. Only the very poor, very young, prime ministers, people giving up cigarettes or smack actually count every day a few times a day if they're not in captivity.

But none of that matters a bollox unless you really were sitting at the edge of your three piece suite saying novenas to the sacred heart or writing ballads to get Ingrid Betancourt released or fretting away thinking she'd never recover from beri beri fever. In that case, now that she is free you feel at a loose end and probably should think of all the other hostages in the world. Widen your campaign now that you're experienced.

Too many people upon learning her name around about before the 2000th day in captivity thought of her as a card or bargaining chip. She is not nor was ever a card. She is now a larger than life piece on the board with lots of cards of her own to play. She has got cards or letters or even better met or is about to meet most of the famous people who care and appear in your newspapers.

I reckon Amy Winehouse doesn't spring to mind as one of the first famous people on your list of those who want to be photographed next to Ingrid or are even remotely connected. Newspapers wreck the head. Don't ever slip into the trap of sourcing your news in them. Just make sure you're in relay distance of a grapevine and everything will be ok.

by Bazooka Joe Sat Jul 05, 2008 14:22

The placing of cable ties on the wrists of the detainees was part of the staging of the 'release'. American Keith Stansell repeatedly shows off the ties to demonstrate he is now a prisoner and soon he will be free.

The fairy tale release is believable only by the most gullible. It never ceases to amaze me how most people swallow any dodgy propaganda they are fed by the media. It's not because the propaganda is believable, it is because they want to believe it.

FARC leaders were paid millions to free hostages
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/07/....html

VIDEO
http://www.mindefensa.gov.co/index.php?page=181&id=7329

by reabhloid Fri Jul 04, 2008 22:18

Serious media sources like the French Swiss Radio and France Presse have already pointed that the FARC got 20 million dollars in exchange for the French-Colombian politician so it doesn't seem to be any kind of blow for the people's army.
I just can't believe how people who write in Indymedia can trust the capitalist media nevertheless call anti-capitalist guerrilleros "scum". And this doesn't just happen with the FARC...
Where are youse coming from?

by Darren C Thu Jul 03, 2008 16:02

Ingrid Betancourt's impromptu airport press conference, flanked by the bloody Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and other military officers with undeniably gringo features was one of the strangest spectacles Machetera has ever seen. Even considering the joy she must have felt at being liberated after so much time in captivity, her effusiveness toward her liberators suggests that the time she spent in the jungle with the FARC left her with no greater understanding of the Colombian conflict than when she was seized on her presidential campaign tour seven years ago. Her extravagant praise of Colombian President Uribe and the Colombian army (who, she implied, had one-upped Israel with its commando tactics) sounded more like a campaign speech than anything else - minus a recent visit to the dentist and blonde highlights in her hair.

Continued at - http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/someone-get-t...aper/

by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Thu Jul 03, 2008 15:11

I think someone is as they say in spanish pissing outside of the potty. No one said anything about supporting the FARC. Ingrid has now come out in favour of a third reelection of Uribe. She is not the smiling fan of the anti globalisation movement so much put out int eh media over the years.

A number of years ago a right wing commentator in Colombia wrote an article on this very subject pointing out that her voting record in teh congress was right wing and neoliberal and that she had never uttered a single statement on the environment despite her green title.

Decribing the conflict in terms of people caught in the middle is stupid really. It does nothing to explain how the legal parties in Colombia massacred 300,000 people in the 1950s (pop. was only 11 million at the time) and gave rise to the current conflict. Whether one agrees with the FARC and the ELN or not, they were a reaction to that violence.

I have not sympathy for Betancourt at all. Rich, white, mouthy and a little thick to go into a guerrilla controlled area she and others had been barred from. I do have sympathy for the families of those soldiers who spent so many years in the mountains when the government could have negotiated their release a long time ago. Amongst those freed, I did not see the son of Gustavo Moncayo the teacher whose walk from nariño de Bogota did more to highlight this issue than any other. I met Moncayo once for an interview, a nice man whose son joined the army due to a lack of money to buy his way out of military service and so joined as a professional to get some money. Uirbe's sons Tomas and Geronimo ( I kid you not that is his name) have yet to go into theh mountains to fight the fight their father loves so much and others like Ingrid seem intent on continuing.

I will be writing a longer article on his in the near future.

by Jim Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:33

We all know that the notoriously corrupt Colombian Army has been involved in a mass murder, torture, terrorism drug trafficking etc etc etc. However that does no in anyway justify the activities of FARC - who are also involved in massmurder, torture and terrorism.
This a brutal conflict between a corrupt super-rich elite and military fascists one side and fanatical communist barbarians on the other side. The impoverished Colombian people are caught in the middle between both sets of criminal gangsters.

Why does opposition to the Colombian military means that one must root for scum like FARC?

by Darren C Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:52

Good responses Gearoid and Pat C

The link below leads to an interesting article by Workers Power that is critical of the FARC's strategy but scathing of Hugo Chávez's call on the FARC to surrender. No wonder Colombia and the USA rushed to praise the Venezuelan president for the first time in many years.

http://workerspower.com/index.php?id=163,1660,0,0,1,0

by pat c Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:24

Well said comrade!

This morning I heard her on the radio praising the Colombian Army: "My army, the army of my country". This is the same army that has slaughtered countless thousands of peasants, teachers, trade unionists. They slaughter anyone who stands up against the Oligarchs.

by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Thu Jul 03, 2008 00:38

Yes Ingrid is free. She is in good health, in fact she is the picture of health, the complete opposite of what we were told by the media. This is not the only case. All of the hostages released were in good health. On previous occasions we told of a Senator so ill he had to drag himself on all fours to get to the toilet. he was however able to walk to freedom when the FARC unilaterally released him earlier this year.

As for Ingrid her first declarations put paid to the myth circulated by some in Europe that she was a progressive candidate. She has fully backed Uribe and the army, yes the same army that even the Colombian prosecutors say murders civilians. Watch this space, she will take an appointment from Uribe at some stage. Uribe who had to buy off congress deputies in order to pass legislation allowing a second term. Uribe who has accused the Colombian Supreme Court of being terrorists because they dare challenge him.

None of this means she deserved her years in the jungle, but then there are others left behind who joined the army out of poverty. The same poverty Ingrid is happy to endorse.

C'est la vie, madame.

by ahem Wed Jul 02, 2008 22:18

with French and Swiss, theres probably an arms deal in there somewhere. or maybe Sarko et al
just like to get really close to the Bushites and play tinker games with Chavez- who Knows?

Uribe was involved, Sarko was involved, the Swiss were involved.
It was not a rescue per se.

I am glad she is alive.
I am glad she is free.

by ned green Wed Jul 02, 2008 22:07

Wonderful news,her freedom was long over due.i wish her and her family well, and I hope her health fully recovers,she was held in appaling barbaric conditions,she didnt deserve such treatment.I hope all the other hostages held by FARC are released soon.