In Colombia, fifteen hostages held by the rebel group FARC have been rescued in an elaborate military operation. In a year-long effort, Colombian forces infiltrated FARC and ultimately fooled the rebels into thinking they were transferring the hostages to another location. The French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American military contractors were among those freed. The contractors had been captured since 2003 after their surveillance plane crashed in the Colombian jungle. After an emotional return to the Colombian capital of Bogota, Bentancourt thanked the Colombian government and reflected on her time in captivity.

Ingrid Betancourt: “I kept playing the movie over in my head many times. Had I been pressured? Had I been stubborn? Today, with the perspective of years behind
me, I feel it was my destiny. I feel that I had to live through what I lived through, that I had to find out what I found out, I have a Ph.D. in the FARC that I hope will be useful to those of us who want to help with all this. I think there are moments in life in which one is at a crossroads between what one wants to do and what one has to do.”

The rescue operation is widely seen as a major blow to the FARC rebels. The fifteen freed prisoners were the most high-profile of hundreds the FARC has held in the hopes of securing the release of captured rebels and achieving other political demands. Three senior FARC leaders have died this year. At her news conference, Betancourt was asked about FARC’s future.

Ingrid Betancourt: “I don’t want to answer that question from an emotional perspective, because this is such a big blow to the FARC that it would be easy to say that the FARC is destroyed. I simply want to give you testimony of what I lived through. Since a year ago, it has been hard for supplies to arrive. We have had little to eat, very little variety in the food, no fruit, no greens. That’s a signal that the logistics could be going through difficulty.”