Betancourt vows not to cut hair until FARC frees all hostages 09/07/2008 00:00
When I saw this headline this week, my first reaction was one of sheer exasperation! The entire world had been holding its breath, hoping and dreaming and praying that Ingrid Betancourt -- fighter for justice, strong and intrepid, not afraid to say out loud what she thought of the perpetrators of injustice --- would be released from her cruel captivity of 6 years in the Columbian jungle. The world looked on aghast as her family appeared on television crying out for help, for justice, -- her children a little older, a little bigger, a little more adult each time they appeared on television. Everyone, to a soul, supported the presidents, the politicians, the church officials -- every person who fought for her release. No one was untouched by the plight of Ingrid Betancourt.And ------- she makes her first press statement and --- ??? --- vows not to cut her hair until all her fellow prisoners and hostages are freed?
Do we care that she cuts her hair or not? Is that supposed to be a threat? A promise? Some noble sacrifice in some obscure jungle tribe that perhaps we don't know about?
it is such an inane and ridiculous notion, that I can only hope that this is a typical case of a reporter having got it wrong, having misinterpreted the context and meaning of this comment of Ingrid Betancourt. Or that it is solely the ludricous state in which the media has regressed where the length of a six-year hostage's hair is the one item which they believe will lure the celebrity-overdosed image-obsessed readers to buying their particular newspaper.
I for one, would like to believe that this woman who has been in my thoughts and prayers almost every single day for the last six years, is not the person who would utter such a betise.
The full story:
Freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt will not cut her hair until all her former fellow prisoners are freed.
9 July 2008
PARIS - Colombian politician and former hostage Ingrid Betancourt vowed in an interview broadcast here late Tuesday not to cut her hair until the FARC rebels in Colombia's jungle free all her fellow captives.
Betancourt, who was rescued last week from Colombian Marxist guerrillas after six years in captivity and is now with her family in France, made the vow in an interview with Caracol television from her hotel in Paris.
"I am not going to cut my hair until the day that the last of my fellow prisoners returns home," she said, one week after she was freed together with 14 others in a daring and dramatic rescue by Colombian commandos last Wednesday.
The 15 were part of a group of at least 39 prisoners, civilians and soldiers, that the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) had sought to exchange for 500 of its own members jailed by the government.
Betancourt, 46, emerged from captivity with hair stretching down her back to her waist.
"It is not easy hair. It's complicated to take care of; I have to braid it because it is not comfortable to wear it loose," she said.
"But it has been like this for all these years because I wanted it as visual proof of all the time passed in the jungle," she said.
"Every centimetre of this hair represents months in captivity."
On Tuesday Betancourt, who also holds French nationality, received tributes and a standing ovation from the French Senate.
She is due to address the French National Assembly on Wednesday and will receive the Legion of Honour, France's highest distinction, from President Nicolas Sarkozy during Bastille Day celebrations on 14 July.
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