Colombia's kidnapped candidate

Shortly before she was kidnapped by leftist guerrillas, Ingrid Betancourt was asked who she admired. She said "Joan of Arc."

To her supporters, Ms. Betancourt is a woman of similar courage and unflagging strength. But in making the comparison, she was also cognizant of Joan of Arc's fate. "I know I could be killed anywhere, anytime. But I am not afraid to die for my beliefs," said the Colombian senator and presidential candidate in a Monitor interview just 10 days before Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas kidnapped her.

Prior to her abduction on Feb. 23, Betancourt held a meeting with FARC guerrilla negotiators in Los Pozos, a hamlet in the heart El Caguán - the 16,000- square-mile zone that President Andrés Pastrana demilitarized in 1998 as an incentive for peace. "You are letting the drug money corrupt you just as it has corrupted the political system," Betancourt told the FARC leaders. The meeting marked the final chapter of a peace process that collapsed Feb. 20 when rebels hijacked a passenger airplane and kidnapped a senator on board. Pastrana then ordered the Army to retake El Caguán, which is also the center of Colombia's drug trade.

Betancourt's status is uncertain. She and some 750 other hostages - including four members of Congress and the senator - are bargaining chips for the FARC, who want to trade them for high-ranking guerrilla leaders currently in prison. In a recent CNN interview, FARC gave the government one year to comply with its demands, or else it will take "appropriate actions." It did not explain what these actions might be.

The renewal of violence and hostage-taking provided the backdrop for Sunday's congressional elections. Armed guards protected several polling places, and despite isolated violent incidents, voting went smoothly nationwide. Colombia's voters rejected the country's two main political parties - Pastrana's Conservative Party and the Liberal Party - which lost a significant number of seats in the election. Observers say this paves the way for a more hardline candidate than the progressive Betancourt in May's presidential election.

Betancourt spent most of her youth in Paris, living a privileged life far away from the troubles of Colombia. After graduating from the prestigious École des Sciences Politiques, she married a French diplomat and gave birth to a boy and a girl. This was the late 1980s, a time when drug barons were waging a brutal war against the Colombian state.

The conflict eventually led to the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, a widely popular and charismatic presi- dential candidate who supported the extradition of the drug barons to the United States. For most Colombians, Galán represented hope for real change. His death plunged Colombia into despair. But it also prompted the 29-year- old Betancourt to return to Colombia to follow the footsteps of her parents, both of whom had been involved in Colombian politics. "My father inculcated in me a deep sense of duty and integrity. I felt I owed a debt to my country," Betancourt explained.

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