In greed

I remember attending a ceremony in honor of Ingrid Betancourt in Bologna, in December 2008. She received a number of honorary titles from the city, awful music inspired in her drama was performed, and at the end she gave a very touching speech, in which she made a lot of references to the Virgin Mary, and to her responsibility in preventing kidnapping in the world. She also briefly mentioned a foundation/NGO she planned to create. The whole thing sounded so noble when I heard it, that I thought that Ingrid was indeed a different person after spending 6 years of her life in the Colombian jungle, kidnapped by the terrorist group FARC.

I also remember thinking that being kidnapped is such an outrageous thing that one should not judge people that have suffered that experience, essentially because one has no idea of what they have been through. Hence, one should respect their suffering (and that of their families); such suffering includes any incoherent reactions or behaviors once they return back to freedom. In Ingrid's case, the incoherence was  in becoming somewhat religious after a having a fairly promising political carrer, built upon equal amounts of courage, intelligence, stubbornness, and arrogance.

In fact, Ingrid was a controversial character way before her kidnapping. She was able to carry out brilliant debates in congress, but also was capable of doing stupid things just to attract media attention. At the end one would put up with the stupid/arrogant side of her, because she would aim at the right goals, most likely with the wrong manners. In the corrupt political setting of a third world country such as Colombia, however, that seemed as an acceptable compromise.

Ingrid was then a special politician. She was a special hostage, too. Her French citizenship was a factor that changed everything in the political tensions between the Colombian government and the FARC. Her family tried to exploit both options, the Colombian and the French, in order to put pressure on FARC so as to get her back. It didn't work that well, and soon it was pretty obvious that she would be the last one in coming back. The attempt of playing both sides wasn't appreciated by a large part of the Colombian society, who found it despicable to try to give priority to certain hostages, because it was clear that France was only interested in Ingrid. The liberty, equality, and fraternity didn't apply for the others. C'est la vie.

But at the end Ingrid got her happy ending and she got back her freedom thanks to a special operation of the Colombian army. We all were quite happy about that. We were equally surprised last week when we heard that she intended to obtain a "symbolic amount of money" from the Colombian state so as to compensate the period during which she was kidnapped by FARC. The amount of money were mere five million euro. The plan was to try to get an agreement for such a money, and to sue the government if no agreement was reached.

It is very hard for me to take position in this move by Ingrid. It is well known that she ignored a number of warnings regarding going to dangerous places, and so she is responsible for her own kidnapping. Of course, she's not responsible that she had to wait six years before coming back, but she was the  responsible in first place. It is hard to explain the way she's hated right now in Colombia. People find her lack of gratitude simply unacceptable. They have a hard time understanding why she claims 5 million euro, which is by no means symbolic for a country such as Colombia. Not only: by attempting to sue the state without a good reason, she has created an awful precedent for other kidnapped people who, unlike Ingrid, might deserve a compensation, for whatever reason. (In the case of other politicians who were kidnapped more or less in the same period as Ingrid, a compensation makes a lot of sense, I think.)

She finally took her demands back, most likely after seeing the unanimous reaction against her and her pretensions. She should haven't done that, in my view. Suing the state is a right, even if you have crazy reasons to do so. Her pretensions would have been denied, I am sure: all the warnings to her were public and are well documented. It would have been great to see, after several years, a final verdict from a court stating that Ingrid was irresponsible and stupid, and also arrogant enough so as to blame others for her own stupidity (and to try to get some money in the process).