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Colombia/France: Mrs Betancourt remains a subject of controversy

Ingrid Betancourt is now free and in France and also in Colombia, polemics have started. In Colombia, her homeland, people want to know whether she is still Colombian or she has decided to adopt France as her former husband’s homeland as hers. Colombians also wants to know whether, she is now a member of the party of President Alvaro Uribe or she is eager to join the opposition. The time has come for Ingrid Betancourt to make her choices and positions clear. But in France, the focus is elsewhere. And it is normal for polemics to start. For it would have been strange that, in protest and strike-land, a lining of controversy did not greet the miraculous freedom of the Colombian Amazon. What is the polemics in France all about? It is of course about Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian woman, formerly married to Fabrice Delloye, a French diplomat. Mrs Betancourt, who is now subject of public scrutiny, has nonetheless helped and given prominence to real and fictitious specialists of Colombia, FARC, and President Alvaro Uribe. Through her, those pseudo-specialists had their periods of media glory and now that, there is a happy end to her horror, some French have started asking questions: is Ingrid Betancourt really French? If yes, what has she done to benefit the kind of attention she has attracted? Was she the only French citizen held hostage in a foreign land?

The answer to the last question is no, Ingrid Betancourt was not the only French held hostage in a foreign land. The other French national held hostage is Gilad Shalid. Coincidently, Mr Shalid and Mrs Betancourt have similarities. They both hold dual nationalities. Mr Shalid is Franco-Israeli while Mrs Betancourt is Franco-Colombian. But why is Mr Shalid’s own case not attracting the same sympathy and activism in France as it was with Mrs Betancourt? It is because of two reasons. The first is that Gilad Shalid is Jewish and contrary to state propaganda, Jews are not appreciated in France and the second reason is that, France is a country with ambiguous foreign policy and she is also afraid to anger French Muslims and she is also afraid to anger the greater sponsors and supporters of Hamas, namely: Syria and Iran. France has lost three French citizens to African dictators recently and she has done nothing. They are: Jean Helen, correspondent of the state owned Radio France International (rfi), Guy Andre Kieffer, freelance journalist and Bernard Borrel. The first two were killed in Ivory Coast allegedly by pro-government elements, while the third met his violent death on government mission in Djibouti.

On those three cases, France’s government doesn’t care or pretend to. As for the cases of Ivory Coast, France’s government can’t act because President Laurent Gbagbo has awarded all contracts in his country without any international tender to Vincent Bollore, owner of TF1television, a propaganda outfit of Nicholas Sarkozy. Mr Vincent Bollore is also one of president Nicholas Sarkozy’s many rich friends. Why should Sarkozy be blamed? Even RFI, doesn’t care about the death of one their star reporter. They have even paid CFA Francs million, in order to secure their presence in Ivory Coast and also made a number of bias reports in favour of Mr Gbagbo, as they did with Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia, some years back. The French it is true like complaining and also like preserving their interest, as seen with the merry-go-rounds of stupid strikes, but this time around, they are correct to question why their government is carrying out selective attention on her citizens held hostage abroad, especially that, the French government did pay extravagant attention on Ingrid Betancourt, who it must be mentioned, is not exactly French? Perhaps because Mrs Ingrid Betancourt is White, Roman Catholic and none Jewish, hence the French state paid that much attention to her case.

By tasco66 on Jul 22, 2008, 11:53 in Politics & the war.