“I had wanted to visit, even for a few hours.” Former Farc hostage, Ingrid Betancourt arrived last Saturday in Colombia on a 24-hour visit, her first visit since her rescue on 2 July and left Sunday for Quito, Ecuador, fist stop on her tour of seven Latin-American countries where she will try to unite Heads of States and governments to the cause of hostages still held by Marxist guerrillas.

Flying over the jungle, ” I was so happy to see this extraordinary and beautiful landscape. I was thinking, this city of Bogota is unusual, it is the capital city and at the same time provincial...When you are in Colombia, it’s another world, another experience, so I just let myself be carried along by being so happy to be here”.

“I wanted to come here, even if it was only for a few hours”, she said.

“I needed to visit. I needed to recharge my batteries, to be with my friends, to be at home” and “I was telling myself I am going to spend my first Christmas and what it is going to be like for them (the hostages ,editor’s note). It is a closed -off world, without hope, and there is no contact between the government and Farc”.

The French-Colombian, guarded by a security detail that does not allow her to walk in the streets of her native city, stated she had found a “country of contrasts, that is growing and maturing”, but where “a lot, a huge amount remains to be done, about human rights, in particular”.

“This is an aspect which needs a lot of work and there are also many social needs”, she stated, explaining “there are differences between those who have and those who have not”, in a country where 50% of the population live below the poverty line.

“In Colombia, there’s a movement against agrarian reform by people who with guns clear out poor farmers and take over their lands”, she explained referring indirectly to the problem of armed gangs- drug traffickers, paramilitaries and guerrillas- who continue to operate, leading to the displacement of thousands of people each year.

“At the heart of the problem is on one hand the sense of impunity of those who have power, who have contacts and means and on the other hand the reality of ordinary people, which must be addressed”, she added.

The former hostage will visit Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and finally Venezuela, “to ask some questions and to reflect”, on a way to find a solution to the conflict in Colombian and to bring about freedom for the hostages.