More than six years later, Nolberto Uni remembers clearly the day when he kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt.
It was Feb. 23, 2002, and the former presidential candidate was traveling in a jeep while on the campaign trail. Uni, then with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was manning a checkpoint on a lonely country road.
“The order was to detain all politicians of national stature,” Uni said on Tuesday in the prison he calls home today.
PHOTO: AP
That Betancourt, one of Colombia’s best-known political figures, passed by “was a coincidence.”
As the world focuses on the plight of the French-Colombian politician who is said to be ill with malaria, depression and a host of other maladies, Uni said he regrets his role in her abduction.
“I do feel remorse,” Uni said. “The family — her mother, her children, her husband — a lot of people are suffering.”
That remorse led him to pen a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which he apologizes and details the reasons for his decision to abandon the FARC in 2003, at great risk to his life.
The rebels are holding Betancourt and about three dozen other high-profile hostages that include three US defense contractors. For their release, the FARC wants a temporary demilitarized zone and freedom for hundreds of jailed rebels.
Betancourt’s plight has become a cause celebre in France. Earlier this month, Sarkozy launched a humanitarian mission to treat or rescue her after receiving reports that she was in grave health.
But the delegation turned back after FARC leaders said they would not unilaterally release hostages and would only exchange Betancourt and other captives for rebels imprisoned in Colombia and the US.
In Paris on Tuesday, Betancourt’s sister Astrid said that to her knowledge there is no basis for reports that her captive sibling has hepatitis B and is near death.
“What is crystal clear for me is that my sister is weak,” Astrid Betancourt said. “But that doesn’t mean that she is so ill she’s on the brink of death.”
Back in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt at first thought the uniform-clad guerrillas who stopped her vehicle were soldiers, Uni said.
After radioing his commander to report the capture of Ingrid Betancourt and her assistant Clara Rojas, he told the politician she was being detained.
“Her face changed color,” the 36-year old Uni said. “She didn’t say anything to me.”
His bloc of the FARC held Ingrid Betancourt and Rojas for another eight or nine months.
Uni eventually grew tired of life with FARC, feeling they had abandoned their ideological roots and were becoming too bound up by rules.
“You could face a trial for drinking two beers, for impregnating your partner,” he said.
So he fled in 2003 along with six other guerrillas.
“If you desert, you are shot,” Uni said. “The FARC are your enemies not just for one or two years, but for life.”
He thinks the FARC executed his brother in retaliation.
Uni handed himself over to Colombian authorities, but he hid his involvement in the kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt and Rojas, who was released by the FARC earlier this year. A fellow guerrilla snitched on him, and he was quickly convicted for the crimes.
Today Uni, too, is serving a 34-year sentence in a maximum-security prison in the central town of Combita.
Uni doesn’t have high hopes for the prospects of an exchange — long stalled by both sides’ refusal to give much ground — that could lead to Ingrid Betancourt’s freedom.
“It looks very difficult to me,” he said.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
IT’S A DEAL? Including the phrase ‘overlapping claims’ in a Chinese-Indonesian joint statement over the weekend puts Jakarta’s national interests at risk, critics say Indonesia yesterday said it does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea, despite signing a maritime development deal with Beijing, as some analysts warned the pact risked compromising its sovereign rights. Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian neighbors over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries. Joint agreements with China in the strategic waterway have been sensitive for years, with some nations wary of deals they fear could be interpreted as legitimizing Beijing’s vast claims. In 2016,
RSS