For Yolanda Pulecio. Ingrid Betancourt's mother, it 's been three years since she spent Christmas Eve in her Bogotá apartment and it looks like this Christmas it will be the same.

Neither her daughters nor her grand children nor anyone will be there. And yet Ingrid's presence is found everywhere. In the hall, a photo of her with her husband is the middle of the table of family photos. ; In the library, in front of the books on politics and novels Ingrid's dark brown look out from every shelf.

"What is the point of pretending, if this house was full every Christmas with a Santa, a Christmas tree, a crib…" says Yolanda thoughtfully and in a sad voice but with the force she has shown over the last 1,390 days that have gone by since her daughter was kidnapped.

For this family Christmas has a double significance since the 25 December will also be Ingrid's 44th birthday: that is why her mother and her husband Juan Carlos Lecompte will be in Paris to spend Christmas with the rest of the family who live there, as well as with the children from Ingrid's first marriage, Melanie and Lorenzo.

For both of them, this trip to Europe is a little break in the campaign they started on 23 February 2002 when Ingrid was kidnapped by FARC on the road to San Vicente del Calguan where peace talks were taking place.

Hardly two days before that, talks had broken down and Ingrid decided to go there at the request of the local mayor, a member of her party.

At that time neither Ingrid's mother nor her husband suspected that what happened then would become one of the longest kidnappings in the history of Colombia; they were not to know that the former presidential candidate would be designated an "exchangeable hostage," an ominous term describing some 60 political and security personnel kidnapped by FARC in order to exchange them for imprisoned rebels.

Since then Yolanda and Juan Carlos have campaigned like so many other Colombians so that Alvaro Uribe would agree to conclude a humanitarian agreement. For three years declarations were made by one side and then by the other but neither side really succeeded in progressing the situation; however they have never lost hope.

" A door has just been opened that we hope will not be closed. The President has moderated his position and now wants to embark on a strategy that will allow a meeting to take place with the rebels in the near future." Yolanda says she hopes that the coming year 2006 will see her daughter's return.

Since Uribe took office in 2002, Juan Carlos Lecompte has not stopped declaring that there was no possibility of seeing his wife again during Uribe's term in office; he probably never thought this term could be renewed for another four years. However, he has a plan "My plan for 2006 is to make the humanitarian exchange the major issue in the campaign". Juan Carlos is referring here to the presidential elections of May 2006, which Uribe is expected to win.

"We have one chance that is that public opinion sends a message to Uribe that to get re-elected he must carry out this exchange: if he does not do it now, I can't see him doing it once he is re-elected".

In recent days Uribe has agreed to one of the conditions demanded by FARC for an exchange. : He will agree to have the military excluded from the negotiation zone, which is what the rebels demanded.

Until now only two 'proofs of life' of Ingrid have been given; two videos released five and eighteen months after the kidnapping; since then nothing. In the last video Ingrid made one of the most courageous speeches ever heard on the part of a kidnap victim, by asking the government to take responsibility, especially with regard to military forces also held captive. As well she sent a message to her mother; she would say the rosary every Saturday at noon and Yolanda has never missed this once. "That is the way I communicate regularly with Ingrid"

Both Yolanda and Juan Carlos are hugely appreciative of the international pressure that has transformed Ingrid into a symbol of all those kidnapped in Colombia, and they are convinced that she will return safe and sound and perhaps stronger than ever.

Her husband, for his part, has other worries: " When we meet again we will be two different persons; I hope that we will be able to overcome all that and be able to live together once more. I am waiting for her".