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Ailing hostage chained to tree
29/02/2008 08:34 - (SA)
Bogota - Colombian rebels chained ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt to a tree and forced her to go without boots as a punishment after she tried to flee her jungle camp, said a fellow captive freed this week.
After six years in rebel hands, French-Colombian politician Betancourt is suffering from hepatitis and liver ailments with little medicine to stop her deterioration, said Luis Eladio Perez, an ex-lawmaker freed on Wednesday with three others.
Details of Betancourt's poor conditions emerged after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez brokered the deal for the rebels to free the four hostages in the second such operation by the left-wing leader since the start of the year.
Perez said Betancourt persuaded him two years ago to escape into the jungle, but after five days swimming rivers, fighting humidity, eating raw fish and evading rebel captors his spirit broke and they surrendered to face rebel punishment.
"I was weak and couldn't resist ... we decided to hand ourselves in and immediately came the repression. We were chained to trees 24 hours a day. They took away our boots," he told Colombia's Caracol radio.
"For the FARC, Ingrid is the golden treasure in this wretched process," he said in the interview.
Letters written by three US hostages to President George W. Bush, US presidential candidates and their families begging that they not be left to rot in the jungle were confiscated after rebels found them hidden on his body.
US Defence Department contractors, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, were captured in February 2003 after their light aircraft crashed in the jungles while on a counter-narcotics mission.
Perez said they fear they will be abandoned after a US court sentenced a rebel commander to 60 years in prison. The FARC have said that their commander and another guerrilla held in a US prison must be swapped for the three Americans.
"We have very low morale, they think they are going to face the same sentence in the Colombian jungle," he said.
Betancourt and the three Americans are among 40 high-profile hostages who the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, wants to exchange for jailed rebels though attempts at talks are stalled.
'Enjoy every moment, enjoy'
Families have praised Chavez for managing to persuade the Marxist rebels to hand over some hostages. But the US foe has angered Washington and Bogota by calling for more recognition for the rebels, who US officials list as terrorists.
The release of Betancourt, snatched while campaigning for the presidency, has become a foreign policy priority for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said on Thursday he was willing to go personally to Colombia to guarantee her handover.
Images from a rebel video released late last year show her gaunt and despondent in her jungle camp.
"I am trying to stay strong, because I have to be strong, but what has happened to Ingrid hurts me so much," her mother Yolanda Pulecio said after Perez's remarks.
Perez said he spent the last six months with three Americans, but during his captivity was often forced to march for days carrying packs and evading troops. At one point he said he slept in a camp inside Ecuador and at another passed close by a large military base.
As he left to march through the jungle to his release earlier this month, Perez said he had a moment to speak to Betancourt but she appeared to have gotten worse even though she had been given vitamins and calcium to help her recover.
"It breaks my heart to have left her behind in the jungle," Perez said recounting their last meeting on February 4.
"She shouted to me, 'Enjoy, enjoy every minute of your freedom, enjoy it,'" he said. "I have those words and that image in my memory and I can't get over them."
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