You only can rest when have the truth, even when it's horrible.
— Ingrid Betancourt
Reconciliation is a decision that you take in your heart.
At first, I didn't want to accept that I had been abducted. I kept thinking, 'Next week, I'll be freed.'
Forgiveness is a very personal and intimate thing. Forgiveness is not something that you can speak for others because it includes not only your desire and will, your reflection and intellect, but also your emotions.
In the jungle, faith also became something very real; it helped me to understand what was happening to me and changed my questions.
These years after my liberation were years of reconstruction, and I think I made the right decisions... I mean, I lost everything: my life; my father died; I didn't know anything about my children.
The thing is that war is the opposite of negotiation. It's when you cannot negotiate, when you cannot talk, when you cannot reach agreements that then you have war.
I lived for nearly seven years with the awareness that death was my everyday companion.
In the jungle, every day is like the other. So you need to have a special discipline to make things different and to keep in your memory the dates and the days. And I think that's something that's very important when you are held hostage.
We can't continue with a justice of vengeance. Peace will require us to accept a certain degree of impunity; it's inevitable.
I had this belief that I couldn't just accept to be treated as an object. It was a problem of dignity.
You need tremendous spirituality to stop yourself falling into the abyss.
The voice of the Holy Father was like a light.
You don't master your fear. You're not able to say, 'I'm not going to be scared.' But what you can do is say, 'OK, I'm very very scared, but I have to do this and this and this.'
I owe everything to France.
More than a victim, I am a survivor of a dehumanization process.
I carry the voices of all my family within me, and they were with me there in the jungle.
Reconciliation is a national decision that has to be debated and a consensus made among Colombians.
We're humans. Why always turn human attitude into political behaviours? I hate that.
I called my party the Green Oxygen party because Colombians were choking.
On one hand, it seems strange that a country that has suffered so much from violence and war would be debating if they want peace or not. But in Colombia, a part of society is deeply connected with the war as a means of making a living.
Sometimes you need other people to embody situations so that you can talk about things that for you are important. And I think that being able to hope for the future is what builds in us the strength to just get rid of things that, in the past, can hurt.
It's easy when you have suffered to feel the link with what others have gone through.
I think that women are peacemakers by genetics, because we are the ones who stay at home and because we are the ones who suffer with the aftermath of war.
You are a free woman, and then you become a prisoner, and you receive all kinds of orders. Sit here, stand there. That's it. You just, you don't have the possibility of even moving to take your bag without asking for permission.
I am not irresponsible.
In the free world, your days pass very quickly because you have so many things to do, and you're in control of your life.
I was forbidden to talk to my fellow hostages.
I was in chains all the time, 24 hours a day, for three years. I tried to wear those chains with dignity, even if I felt that it was unbearable.
I want to tell President Sarkozy - and through him, all the French people - that they were our support, our light.
We have to be aware of our fragilities as human beings - when we see cruelty, to understand that in certain conditions, we could be cruel, too.
France is my home; you are my family. I am carrying all of you in my heart.
After six years without seeing one, I love just seeing a smile - every smile I see gives me hope.
During my captivity, I felt abandoned by everyone apart from my family and supporters, because there was no part of the political spectrum that would want me released.
Like in every peace process, and especially in Colombia, there all kinds of problems that will come through. Not only is the process by itself very complicated but it has lots of underground complications.
I didn't want to accept that people would forget me, that the government wouldn't do anything to negotiate our freedom. After a year, I came to understand that not only had one year passed, many more would come.
I studied political science at the Ecole de Sciences Politiques in Paris.
As a Colombian, the only way I can relate to my country is through suffering. I hope that my children and my grandchildren will relate to the beautiful country in a way that it is positive and loving.
A novel - it's also a way of attacking subjects that you cannot confront in the eye.
In Colombia, women are a huge factor for reconciliation. I have seen many strong women advocating for negotiations. I remember when the paramilitary were active, there were women close to the paramilitary asking for negotiations.
Living in a jungle is not something easy; it's not something that you just adapt yourself to. And I think that in my case, I didn't want to adapt.
I think that the worst thing is realizing that mankind - that - that human beings can be so horrible to other human beings.
When you lose your freedom, you are alone with your emotions and reactions... you can see, for example, the bad reactions you have in front of others or the way you could be dismissive or harsh.
The relationship with time changes when you're captive.
I know that I have to give testimony about all the things I lived, but I need time.
I want to serve my country, but not necessarily in the political arena.
I never say no to an ice cream.
I have shed many tears of pain and indignation.
In a kidnapping, you leave behind a lot of your baggage, like arrogance and stubbornness.
In captivity, one loses every way of acting over little details which satisfy the essentials of life. Everything has to be asked for: permission to go to the toilet, permission to ask a guard something, permission to talk to another hostage - to brush your teeth, use toilet paper, everything is a negotiation.
