Once a year
I’m a sucker for sudden releases from captivity. Well who isn’t. I feel sheepish, because it’s so obvious, but what the hell. I’m a sucker for reunions, too. You get your release from captivity and your reunion together – well there you go. I’m glad Bettancourt is free, I’m glad she looks so much healthier than she did last November.
Funny, it was almost exactly a year ago – a year ago tomorrow – that Alan Johnston was suddenly released, and I was a sucker then too.
There are other captives though.
Brilliant that FARC has released Bettancourt. She is the personification of commitment and courage.
To put a little of a downer on it…it coincided with McCain’s visit, did it not? Uribe is not someone to be trusted.
>Brilliant that FARC has released Bettancourt.< I think that needs rephrasing.
Heehee.
No no, FARC meant to do that. It was just pretending to be fooled. That’s what I would be saying if I were FARC.
It’s great that Bettancourt is free, but as OB points out, she has gained a bit of weight in the last year. Did the FARC feed her better? There is something hard to believe in the whole story about infiltrating the FARC and deceiving them with the helicopter. And then the strange coincidence that the 3 U.S. contract-men (I suppose that means mercenaries) were there together with Ingrid B. The speech that Ingrid B. gave upon her release seemed too well-prepared to be the spontaneous words of someone who had just been freed without warning. I doubt that we’re going to learn what really happened, so let’s rejoice that Ingrid is free.
Ooooooooooh yes, and how could two little airplanes knock down such tall tall buildings? Oooooooooh. Maybe all the hostages are in Roswell now, talking to their fellow aliens.
Granted it is remarkably cinematic, but what’s the thinking here, amos? That actually the hostages were rescued in a messier operation a few days ago and they co-operated in a deception? That they were rescued last week but obligingly waited for McCain to arrive? That they were rescued last week but still kept in captivity by Colombia and the US and Israel, and they’re keeping mum about it because…because the US and Colombia and Israel have promised to kill all their relatives if they don’t? And Betancourt’s speech yesterday was not convincing but her performance of ecstatic happiness was? That would be quite an acting job if she’d been playing along with some state deception under the only kind of duress that could make such playing along remotely plausible.
Anyway, nonsense about the speech; some people do talk well on short notice, and Betancourt is after all an experienced senator and presidential campaigner: I would imagine she knows how to talk well at short notice even in dramatic circumstances.
True. I don’t tend to believe in conspiracy theories myself, but from time to time there are conspiracies.
Like you, I am genuinely happy that Ingrid and the other hostages are free.
The more I think about it the funnier it gets. Yes Betancourt is not as emaciated as she was. So – she was actually rescued last January, but her rescuers begged her to wait until July to leave the remote jungle camp and be reunited with her mother and children, because…because they wanted time to write the speeches. She said sure, fine, no problem, as long as you give me enough to eat. They brought in lots of lovely food and Betancourt steadily put on weight, and seven months later she at last got on the helicopter.
So likely!
Sorry, cross-post. But it is quite funny…
Sometimes there are indeed conspiracies; the works of the CIA during the 50s and 60s and 70s were often deceptive in the extreme, and Bush’s secret fun and games in Iran lately are another example. But this…I dunno, if it were a conspiracy I think we’d be seeing photos of Bush flying the helicopter.
[falls to the floor in mirth]
Actually, I have no alternative theories to the story in the media, which seemed strange to me for the reasons which I mentioned above. It’s possible to doubt the official version without inventing an alternative version. By the way, in terms of conspiracies, the whole helicopter thing, if it was true, was quite a conspiracy. It well may be that Ingrid wasn’t freed an hour before the speech, as the media claimed, but 5 hours beforehand, during which time she bathed, had a good meal, took a tranquilizer, prepared her speech, had makeup applied for the TV cameras making her look healthier, talked to Uribe, etc. Sometimes minor inconsistencies in the official version may lead one to suspect huge inconsistences when there really are only minor inconsistencies.
“The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another,” Betancourt said.
Again, I say Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! is a wonderful thing!
For someone who thought she was going to be stuck to her children like chewing gum, she certainly had another thing coming.
What a relief. It could so easily have been another botched – up job.
>It well may be that Ingrid wasn’t freed an hour before the speech, as the media claimed, but 5 hours beforehand, during which time she bathed, had a good meal, took a tranquilizer, prepared her speech, had makeup applied for the TV cameras making her look healthier, talked to Uribe, etc.< [I’m going to assume this is not meant as a joke.] Yes, that sounds likely. The authorities/government would have wanted her to “look healthier”. Wouldn’t it have been better for propaganda purposes for Betancourt to have been made up to look more emaciated? >but as OB points out, she has gained a bit of weight in the last year. Did the FARC feed her better? There is something hard to believe in the whole story…< Maybe she had been ill. Maybe there’s some other explanation. But hey, a conspiracy theory is so much sexier. >And then the strange coincidence that the 3 U.S. contract-men (I suppose that means mercenaries) were there together with Ingrid B.< Makes you think, dunnit? >Sometimes minor inconsistencies in the official version may lead one to suspect huge inconsistences when there really are only minor inconsistencies.< Well, it depends on one’s mindset. Another way of looking at it is that with just about any human scenario of any complexity there are loose ends that *on the surface* don’t necessarily fit together seamlessly, especially through the lens of press reports. But if one is looking for signs of a conspiracy one can *always* find pointers – why else would McCain want to be in Columbia, etc, etc. Let’s all look for other things that look decidedly suspicious. It’s such fun.
Okay! I’ll start! Why was Betancourt wearing the camouflage hat? Why didn’t she take it off as soon as she realized she was free? (Because it was wired?) Why was her hair so nicely coiled? (Because there was a tiny camera concealed in it?) Why were the helicopters painted white? (As a racial signal?)
pant pant pant
From the BBC report:
>Armed forces chief Gen Freddy Padilla said: “We wanted to have it happen as it did today. Without a single shot. Without anyone wounded. Absolutely safe and sound, without a scratch.”< >Ms Betancourt said: “This is a miracle. There is no historical precedent for such a perfect operation.”< Call me a conspiracy theorist, but is it not clear that Betancourt is hinting that there is more to this story than meets the eye?
Well you must admit, it is pretty dastardly to conspire to bring off such an operation without killing or even injuring anyone. It’s an outrage.
This is indeed very good news!
(I am a bit out of the loop at the moment and only learnt it now through B&W! Thanks OB!)
As for conspiracy theories, [sigh] where to start?
(I don’t speak Spanish but I didn’t think Betancourt’s speech looked so polished. She basically said thank you to everybody. No doubt, the simultaneous translation helped.)
But, for myself, I blame Hollywood, and thrillers writers. All these weavers of tightly scripted plots, basically, in which every incident, however trivial, means something, everything is a clue; plots that leave no place to the messiness of real life. I am convinced it’s a relatively recent phenomenon: scenarios have vastly improved over the last few decades (watch again The Big Sleep. Great movie, sure, but the plot makes no sense!)
Result: when confronted with the chaos of the real world we instinctively try to tie all the knots and cross all the Ts because for us now, brainwashed as we are, everything must be relevant!
Well, that was my conspiracy theory anyway! ;-)
There must be quite a few swp/milne/loonylefty types chagrinned that the wrong set of guys pulled off this dramatic rescue – Great Leader Chavez had his photo-op and 10-hour televised harangue of the west stolen from right under his nose, dammit!
As I’m sure is the case with the many Guardian readers who are not so easily deceived as some I could name, I’m reserving judgement on this event until I read Seamus Milne’s take on it on CiF.
I’m sorry, but it really is stretching the boundaries of credulity to think that this operation was conducted as portrayed – in such a perfect and clockwork manner (yeah, the McCain comment was a bit stupid, but then again, so it comparing my comments to 9/11 conspiracists).
No shots fired? FARC’s highest value hostage moved with much lower value hostages? Colombian security forces being competent? Che Guevara t-shirts fooling the captors? No prior negotiations?
Then again, maybe Reyes’ death really has decapitated FARC.
Regardless, good to see Betancourt safe.
DFG: Likewise, some of the successful escapes from German Prisoner of War camps in WW2 involving months and months of work digging long tunnels, hiding the earth dug up, finding the right moment to escape, and so on, do, in your words, “stretch the bounds of credibility”. Isn’t it obvious there must have been some collusion with the Commander of the camps? In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this stretched to the German High Command. Hitler probably ordered there be allowed a quota of escapees to keep his home soldiers up to scratch.
No no no no no. Hitler and the allies needed an agreed story to humanise relations when it became evident that Stalin had backtracked, and they were going to have to go to Phase 3 [the Paraguay Option]. Therefore the prison camp narrative paradigm was invented, with its tropes of uneasy coexistence and dogged determination, and essentially game-like rules, to facilitate postwar reflection on how not all the Germans were so bad after all…
It’s a little-known fact that the SS donated old bed-slats and travel papers to selected pow camps to facilitate escapes – all sub rosa of course.
Allen,
That is an astonishingly weak analogy.
It’s not a conspiracy, FARC is either greatly weakened in it’s leadership structure, thus providing the conditions for the infiltration reported OR it is business as usual and a pile of cash changed hands.
I was directly responding to your writing the following:
>I’m sorry, but it really is stretching the boundaries of credulity to think that this operation was conducted as portrayed – in such a perfect and clockwork manner.< So I’m not sure that my above scenario should be described as an analogy, but rather as an illustration that complicated operations can go just right without there necessarily being deliberately concealed circumstances that would put a very different complexion on the event. >FARC is either greatly weakened in it’s leadership structure, thus providing the conditions for the infiltration reported …< Very possible: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7273320.stm
But the likelihood that FARC is greatly weakened in its leadership structure has featured largely from the very beginning of this story. So where does the stretching credulity come in?
Well, When Reyes was killed, it was revealed that Chavez was offering financial support for FARC. This has dried up. Earlier in the year, Uribe offered FARC millions to release Betancourt and other hostages. There has been a fair bit of toing-and-froing over Betancourt, including maverick offers to free her from FARC insiders.
So as per above, either FARC is (happily) in deep trouble and has lost it’s way OR it was Cash talking…
>Uribe offered FARC millions to release Betancourt and other hostages.< From a search on the internet it seems clear that what was on offer was monetary reward for members of FARC who released captives and turned themselves in at the same time. This hardly constitutes money being offered to FARC (as an organisation) to release prisoners. More generally, it is good practice to cite sources when making contentions so their reliability can be judged. For instance (compare above) “French state media also raised questions about Ms Betancourt’s healthy appearance on her release, compared with the gaunt and haggard look of her last video from captivity.”
http://tinyurl.com/5kwn99
Sounds impressive: Doubts expressed on French state radio.
Then read the following about how another captive, Corporal Perez, nursed Betancourt from near death: “When a picture was released by guerrillas showing Betancourt pale and seemingly emaciated, she was already on the road to recovery, Perez said. Many people were surprised by how well Betancourt appeared when she stepped to freedom last week. ‘Watching her get better gave me energy, too,’ said Perez.”
http://tinyurl.com/6rhw3d
Ah – the corporal was the guy next to her on the helicopter, the one she hugged when they got the news.
And ouch – his grandmother died of a heart attack when she got the news. That’s not fair.
Allen,
Riiggght. Thanks for enlightening me. Keep on Googling!
Sorry, but I am not going to cite sources every time I type something that you feel it contentious.