Commandos dramatically rescued Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages by posing as their Marxist rebel captors and flying them out of their jungle prison by helicopter.
Betancourt paid tribute to the international efforts to end her six years in captivity and admitted even she had been taken in by the army operation late on Wednesday, which also freed three US defense contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers.
“To all of you Colombians, for all of you French who have been with us, that accompanied us in the world, that helped us to remain alive, that helped the world to know what was going on: thank you,” Betancourt said after her release.
She said the hostages did not know that rebels who had come to move them to a new hideout were Colombian soldiers in disguise, noting some wore T-shirts bearing the portrait of legendary revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
The disguised soldiers made the hostages board a helicopter with their wrists bound, saying they were being transferred to a new Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) base.
It was only when they were in the air that “the chief of operations said: “We are the national army and you are all free,” Betancourt said after arriving at Bogota’s military airport.
“And the helicopter almost fell because we started jumping. We screamed, we cried, we hugged. We couldn’t believe it,” she said.
As she descended from the plane looking fresh and happy, dressed in an army camouflage vest and hat, Betancourt embraced her mother, Yolanda Pulecio, and praised the “perfect operation” that had freed her.
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the rescue, made possible by a military agent’s infiltration of the rebels, “will no doubt go down in history for its audacity.”
US Ambassador to Bogota William Brownfield told CNN that Washington had provided “technical support” to the operation, but Santos insisted it was a “one hundred percent Colombian” effort.
Betancourt, a candidate for the Green party, and her campaign manager Clara Rojas, were abducted by the FARC on Feb. 23, 2002. Rojas was released in January.
Speaking in French and Spanish, Betancourt thanked everyone for keeping their plight alive.
“We were able to dream. We were able to keep hope alive because we heard our loved ones” on the radio, she said, according to a translation on CNN.
US hostages Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, captured in 2003 when their plane crashed during a US Department of Defense anti-drug mission, arrived back in the US early yesterday.
World leaders hailed the release and celebrations broke out on the streets of Colombian cities to mark the brazen jungle rescue as a bright spot for a country plagued for decades by kidnappings.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who spoke with Betancourt just after her release, praised the “magnificent work” of the rescue team and compared the operation “to the greatest epics in the history of man.”
Betancourt’s husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, said in Bogota he was surprised to see her looking so well. Her teenage son, Lorenzo Delloye, said it was “an indescribable joy” to hear that his mother was free.
Betancourt is to return to France today, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s top aide Claude Gueant said.
Norway’s foreign ministry also said yesterday that a Norwegian-Colombian university professor, kidnapped by FARC rebels along with five others in northwest Colombia in January, has been released.
Alf Onshus Nino “has been freed and will now be able to return to his family. We are of course thrilled,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Kristin Melsom, who refused to give details.
Also see: Rescued US hostages back on US soil
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