Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

by Ingrid Betancourt

  The rains brought bad news. Ferney told me he was going to be transferred to another camp. Andres had taken an intense dislike toward him, accusing him of being too kind and standing up for me. Disheartened, Ferney said to me, “Ingrid, you must always remember what I’m going to say to you: If they treat you badly, always respond with goodness. Never lower yourself, don’t react to insults. You must know that silence will always be your best response. Promise me that you will be careful. Someday, I will see you on television when you will get back your freedom. I am waiting for that day. You do not have the right to die here.”

  His departure was wrenching, because despite everything that separated us, in Ferney I had found a sincere heart. I knew that in this abominable jungle I had to detach myself from everything to avoid more suffering. But I was beginning to think that in life there might be some suffering that was worth enduring. Ferney’s friendship had lightened my first months of captivity, especially the suffocating confinement with Clara. His leaving would force me to be tougher, to find greater psychological strength. I was even more alone now.

  NINETEEN

  VOICES FROM THE OUTSIDE

  The radio that Clara had broken now worked only half the time. And the only broadcasts we managed to get were a Sunday mass transmitted live from San José del Guaviare, the capital of one of the departments in the Amazon, and a station that played some popular music the guerrillas adored and I was sick of.

  One morning out of the blue, the guards called me urgently because the radio had announced that my daughter would be on the air. Standing outside the caleta, I listened to Melanie’s voice. I was surprised by how clearly she reasoned, how well she expressed herself. She was barely seventeen at the time. My pride in her was stronger than sadness. Tears flowed down my cheeks at the moment I least expected. I went back inside the cage, warmed by a feeling of great peace.

  Another time when I was already stretched out in my corner under my mosquito net, I heard Pope John Paul II pleading for our release. His voice was unmistakable, and to me it meant everything. I thanked the heavens above, not so much because I thought that the leaders of the FARC would be moved by the pope’s appeal but because I knew that his gesture would lighten my family’s burden and help them bear our cross.

  Of the few lifelines we received during this period, one gave me hope that I could recover my freedom—that was Dominique de Villepin. We had met when I was just starting my studies at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and had not seen each other again for almost twenty years. In 1998 recently elected president Pastrana decided to go to France before his inauguration; he wanted to attend the soccer World Cup. I knew that Dominique had been appointed secretary-general of the Élysée Palace, and I suggested to Pastrana that he call him. Dominique arranged an official welcome, and Pastrana called to thank me. Shortly thereafter Dominique and I renewed our friendship. He had not changed. He was as generous and as considerate as I had remembered him to be. From then on, whenever I went to Paris, I made sure to call him. “You have to write a book, you have to make sure your struggle to reclaim Colombia exists in the eyes of the world,” he’d said. I followed his advice and wrote a first book.

  One evening at dusk, I was getting ready to put my work away. The guard was already rattling the keys to the padlock to let us know it was time to lock us up. In the nearest caleta, a radio had been squawking all afternoon. I’d learned to shut out the outside world and live in my own silence, so I heard it without really listening. I suddenly froze. I searched with my eyes where it came from, a familiar sound from another time, another world: I recognized Dominique’s voice. I turned around and ran between the caletas to place my ear against the radio, which was swinging from a post. The guard behind me screamed at me to go back into the cage. I waved to him to be quiet. Dominique was speaking perfect Spanish. Nothing he said seemed to have anything to do with me. The guard, intrigued by my reaction, put his ear up against the radio like me. The newscaster intoned, “On an official journey to Colombia, the French minister of foreign affairs, Dominique de Villepin, wanted to express his country’s commitment to ensure that the French-Colombian citizen be returned alive as soon as possible, along with all the hostages.”

  “Who is it?” asked the guard.

  “My friend,” I replied, moved, because Dominique’s tone betrayed the pain our situation was causing him.

  The story spread like wildfire through the camp. Andres came to hear the news. He wanted to know why I was attaching so much importance to this information.

  “Dominique has come to Colombia to fight for us. Now I know France will never let us down!”

  Andres was looking at me incredulously. He was completely resistant to notions of greatness or sacrifice. For him the only thing that mattered was the fact that I had a French passport, and France—a country he knew nothing about—wanted to negotiate our release. He saw vested interests where I saw principles.

  After Dominique’s speech everything changed. For better and for worse. My status as a prisoner went through an obvious transformation. Not only with regard to the guerrillas, who now understood that their booty had increased in value. But also with regard to the others. From that time on, the radio stations felt duty-bound to hammer home that I was a “French-Colombian”—sometimes as an almost indecent advantage, sometimes with a touch of irony, but most often with a concern to mobilize hearts and minds. I was indeed a dual national: Born in Colombia, raised in France, I had engaged in Colombian politics to fight against corruption. I felt as much at home in Colombia as I did in France. But it was above all on my future relations with other hostages that the support of France would have deep repercussions. “Why her and not us?”

  I first sensed this during a discussion with Clara about our chances of getting out.

  “Why should you complain? At least you’ve got France fighting for you!” she burst out.

  The New Year started off with a surprise. One morning we saw the new commander from Front Fifteen arrive, the one who had replaced El Mocho Cesar after his death.

  He was escorted by a tall brunette entrusted with a delicate mission.

  “I’ve come to convey some very important news,” she said tensely. “You will be allowed to send a message to your families!”

  She had a movie camera strapped to her wrist and was ready to film us. I looked down on her, uptight and distant. This was neither a favor to us nor important news. I remembered how shamefully they’d edited my previous proof of life. They had cut the parts where I described the conditions of our detention, the chains we had to wear twenty-four hours a day, as well as the declaration of gratitude to the families of soldiers who had died fighting to rescue us.

  “I have no message to send, thank you all the same.” I turned on my heel and went back into the cage, followed by Clara, who grabbed me by the arm, infuriated by my response.

  “Listen, if you want to do it, go ahead,” I told her. “You don’t need me to send a message to your family. You should do it. It would be very good if you do it.”

  She wouldn’t let go of me. She absolutely had to know why I refused to send proof that I was alive.

  “It’s very simple. They are holding me prisoner, so be it—there’s nothing I can do. What I do not accept is that in addition they manipulate my voice and my thoughts. I haven’t forgotten the way they treated us last time. We recorded twenty minutes, and they sent ten, arbitrarily choosing whatever suited them. Raúl Reyes makes declarations in my place, stealing my voice. That’s unacceptable. I refuse to play along with their tricks.”

  After a long pause, Clara went to speak to the brunette. “I don’t have a message to send either,” she told the woman.

  A few days later, Andres showed up, visibly excited. “There’s someone from your family who wants to talk to you through the radio.”

  I never dreamed that this could be possible. He had set up a table with the machine beneath a sophisticated installation of thick cables arranged in a p
yramid. The radio technician, a young, blond guerrilla boy with blue eyes, whom they called “Chameleon,” was repeating a series of codes and changing the frequency.

  After an hour had gone by, he handed me the microphone. “Speak!” blurted Chameleon.

  I didn’t know what to say. “Yes, hello?”

  “Ingrid?”

  “Yes?”

  “Good, Ingrid, we’re going to connect you with someone important, who is going to speak to you. You won’t hear their voice. We’ll repeat their questions, and we’ll transmit your answers.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “To verify your identity, the person wants you to provide the name of your childhood friend who lives in Haiti.”

  “I want to know who I’m talking to. Who’s asking that question?”

  “It’s someone who’s connected with France.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Right. Well then, I can’t answer either.”

  I felt manipulated. Why couldn’t they simply tell me whom I was talking to? And what if it was all just a trick to obtain information they would use against me at some later point? For a few minutes, I had believed I might hear their voices—Mom, Melanie, or Lorenzo.

  TWENTY

  A VISIT FROM JOAQUÍN GÓMEZ

  A few weeks later, as I was beginning the fourth belt in my project of weaving a belt for each member of my family, I heard the sound of an engine, which usually meant our supplies were being delivered. The chaos that had suddenly erupted in the camp—everyone trying to tidy up, put on uniforms, comb hair—made me realize that along with the normal supplies some big fish must have just arrived.

  It was Joaquín Gómez, the chief of the Southern Bloc and adjunct member of the Secretariado, and as such the most important authority in their organization that these guerrillas had ever seen. He was born in La Guajira and had the dark-colored skin of the Wayuu Indians of the north of Colombia.

  He was taking great strides through the camp, his back bent in the manner of men who carry very heavy responsibilities, and he spread his arms as he walked toward me before hugging me for a long time, like an old friend.

  I was strangely moved to see him. The last time we’d met was during the televised debate for presidential candidates, in the presence of government negotiators and members of FARC, during Pastrana’s peace process, in San Vicente del Caguán, two weeks before my abduction. Of all the members of the Secretariado, he was my favorite. He was relaxed, always smiling, affable, even funny, and he possessed none of the sectarian, sullen attitude that was typical of the hard-line FARC commanders.

  He had two chairs brought over, and he sat with me behind the cage, in the shade of a huge ceiba.25 He took a box of cashew nuts from his pocket on the sly, and without a fuss he placed it in my hands. What a treat! He laughed to see my delight and, as if to impress me still more, asked if I liked vodka. Even if I hadn’t, I would have said yes—in the jungle you don’t refuse anything. He gave instructions to one of the men to go and look in his equipment, and a yellow-labeled bottle of lime and lemon Absolut eventually ended up in my hands. This was a promising beginning for conversation. I used it sparingly, wary of the effects the alcohol might have on my weakened body.

  “How are you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders in spite of myself. I would have liked to be more courteous, but what was the point in replying to something so obvious?

  “I want you to tell me everything,” he continued, sensing that I was holding back.

  “How long will you be staying here?”

  “I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. I want to have time to arrange some things in the camp, but above all I want us to have a talk.”

  We got down to business immediately. He wanted to know why France was interested in me and why the UN wanted to get involved in negotiating our release.

  “In any case we’ll have nothing to do with the UN. They’re gringo agents.”

  His remark surprised me. He didn’t know anything about the UN.

  “It really would be in your best interests to accept the UN’s gestures. They’re an indispensable partner in any peace process.”

  He retorted, “They’re spies! Exactly like the Americans we’ve just captured.”

  “Who are they? Have you seen them? How are they?”

  I had heard the news on the radio. Three Americans flying over a FARC camp had been captured a few days earlier.

  “They’re doing great, they’re big sturdy guys. A little stay with us will do them a world of good. To guard them, Comrade Jorge has assigned the smallest men we have. Just a lesson in humility to remind them that size is not proportional to courage!” He burst out laughing.

  The sarcasm in his words hurt me. I knew that those men must be suffering. Joaquín must have sensed my restraint, because he added, “In any event it will be good for everybody if the Americans put pressure on Uribe to obtain the gringos’ release, and you’ll be out that much faster.”

  “You’re wrong. You made a mistake with me. You’re doing a huge favor to all those people who found me too much of a troublemaker in Colombian politics. The establishment won’t budge even a little finger to get me out of here.”

  Joaquín looked at me for a long time, his gaze so melancholy that it ended up making me feel sorry for myself. I had begun to shiver despite the heat.

  “Come on, then, let’s go for a little peripatetic walk!” He took me by the shoulders and led me over to the jogging track, laughing with a mischievous air.

  “Where did you get that? ‘Peripatetic’!” I asked in disbelief.

  “What? Do you think I’m illiterate? My poor child, I have read all the Russian classics! Just remember that I went to the Lumumba!”26

  “Well, tovarich! We have Aristotle to thank, then, because I want to talk to you frankly. But that’s impossible with all the guards around.”

  We calmly moved away, following the sandy path to the athletic track. We walked for hours, going round and round the same track until twilight. I told him everything we’d been enduring at the hands of these often cruel and insensitive men—the constant humiliation, the scorn, the stupid punishments, the harassment, the jealousy, the hatred, the sexism, all the everyday details that poisoned our lives, with the number of things Andres forbade us to do increasing by the day, the absence of all communication or information, the abuse, the violence, the meanness, the lying. I even told him stupid details, like the story about the chicken coop Andres had built opposite our cage to taunt us and the fresh eggs they ate each day, and the smell that came from the rancha to tease our nostrils in the morning, yet there were never any for us.

  I told him everything, or almost. For I found it impossible to evoke certain things.

  “Ingrid, I’m going to do all I can to improve your conditions here. You have my word. But now you must tell me sincerely, why do you refuse to let us record your proof of life?”

  Joaquín Gómez came back to get me at my cage the following morning. He had given the order to kill the hens, and at the rancha the cooks were busy preparing them “in the pot,” which made my mouth water all morning. He wanted us to have lunch all together, with Fabián Ramírez, his second in command, whom I’d seen very little because he had dealt only with Clara. I had already met him when I spoke with Manuel Marulanda before my capture. He was a young man of average height, blond, with milky-white skin that visibly suffered from the continual exposure to the region’s implacable sun. I concluded that he must not live under the forest canopy as we did, that he was probably always on the move on a small motorboat along the innumerable tributaries of the Amazon.

  When Joaquín came to see me, he seemed preoccupied. “Has your companion spoken to you about the request she made to us?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. In fact, Clara and I were not communicating very much.

  “No, I don’t know anything. What’s it about?”

  “Listen, it’s rather d
elicate. She’s claiming her rights as a woman, talking about her biological clock, saying she’s running out of time to become a mother—in short, I think we should talk about it before I submit her request to the Secretariado.”

  “Joaquín, I appreciate what you are trying to do. But I want to be very clear about this: I have no opinion in the matter. Clara is a grown woman. Her private life is no one’s business but her own.”

  “All right, if you think you have nothing to say, I respect that. However, I want her to repeat to both of us in person what she said to Fabián. So I’ll ask you to come with me.”

  We sat down at a little table, and Fabián went to collect my companion, who was still in the cage. She sat down next to me, opposite Fabián and Joaquín, and she repeated word for word what I’d already been told. It was clear that Joaquín not only wanted me to be informed but also wanted me to be a witness.

  Clara’s request surprised me and left me puzzled. I decided I had a responsibility to talk to her. And I asked myself what my father’s advice would have been if I could have consulted him. I spoke to her as sincerely as possible, wiping the slate clean of our everyday difficulties, to offer her some thoughts that might help her evaluate the consequences of her request. We had both been cornered, burdened with a terrible fate. We had each, independently, called upon whatever psychological resources we had at hand in order to survive. I drew from an enormous reserve of memories, feeling thankful for the incredible store of happiness I had accumulated over the years and for the strength I’d found in my children. I knew that because they were waiting for me I would never give up my struggle to return home alive.