Free Ingrid Betancourt! [top]

Ingrid Betancourt, a champion for reform and corruption clean-up in the Colombian government, was kidnapped while running for presidential office in that country. The Colombian government is using weapons, supplied by the U.S., to fight this war instead of working for a peaceful resolution. Please try to do what you can to help. Call, write, or email your elected representatives; sign the petition on the website below.

www.Betancourt.info
Free Ingrid Betancourt

News

Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes' documentary, Missing Peace, about the kidnapping of Colombian Presidential Candidate Ingrid Bentacourt, won the Feature Audience Award at Slamdance.

At Last--Hope!
The newspaper El Tiempo announces that before 2003, there will be a dialogue between the Colombian government and FARCs to discuss the release of sequestered people; Luis Carlos Restrepo, commissionner of PEACE, which will meet the envoys of FARC. The meeting should occur outside Colombian territory -- probably Venezuela -- and France will stand as guarantor of the safety of the emissary.

This announcement comes a little less than one week after Melanie Delloye, Ingrid's daughter, intervened at the Palais-Bourbon to ask France "to apply itself more" towards her mother's release. Melanie asked that the Colombian Government designate as quickly as possible "a credible negotiator" for negotiations with FARC. She and the support committees gave a copy of a petition with 50,000 signatures to the French government and to the embassy of Colombia

For more details and the photographs see the Green party's Free Ingrid Betancourt page.

U.S. Funds Colombian Military Despite Its Human Rights Failures
"To claim that Colombia has met human rights conditions makes a mockery of the law," said Eric Olson, AIUSA's Advocacy Director for the Americas, responding to U.S. plans to provide military assistance to the country.

Farc video shows Betancourt alive (7.25.02)