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Ingrid Betancourt with Nicolas Madura, Foreign Minister after Ingrid's meeting with President Chávez |
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The Colombian-French politician considers that the Venezuelan leader “is a great democrat” (…) “A leftist and revolutionary president that has carried out a peaceful revolution in Venezuela”. She also said that “I have never distrusted him, and I have never thought he has clandestine or sinful relations with the FARC.”
In a visit to the Miraflores Presidential Palace, the former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt thanked President Hugo Chávez’s actions to free the hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
“Ingrid, I will never stop fighting for our people’s freedom, I will never give up in the pursuit of peace for our continent, therefore, the peace for Colombia too,” said the former congress woman on her way out from the meeting quoting Venezuelan president.
“For me, it was absolutely important to come and talk to President Chávez, to whom I wanted to thank personally for his commitment, his generosity, his love, and all he has invested to reach our freedom,” Betancourt added when explaining that the interest of Venezuela for the Colombian hostages in the jungle permitted to free some of them, among them two women and a child.
“Thank, President Chávez, six of my co-hostages reached their freedom, among them two women that they freed first with the child Emmanuel; it was thank to Chávez. Then, four of my co-hostages “with whom I shared years of captivity,” reached their freedom. They were very sick, and because of President Chávez’s help, they would have worsened”, she remarked.
It cannot be forgotten that in the jungle “the voice of President Chávez gave us hope; in the most terrible moments, that voice meant a light in the darkness and let us think of the possibility of our liberation.”
That voice came “after too many years of solitude, of abandonment, of feeling being forgotten by the world. When President Chávez started to talk to us we actually felt a possibility of being freed.”
“I wanted to come and hug President Chávez and thank him for what he has done. It was really compromising and rewarding for him because of the liberation of some hostages, but troubling and painful,” she added.
Betancourt said that the attention given by the Venezuelan Government to the situation in Colombia “was worth it, and allowed my liberation”.
She also thanked the Venezuelan people, “that received my family, received my mom in moments of solitude for us; my mother, sister and children found here a family, and a second homeland.”
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