BOGOTA—The photograph of Ingrid Betancourt in her mother's Bogota home could not provide a starker contrast to her life six years after guerrillas kidnapped her as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency.
In the large picture she smiles with her mother and sister in happier times. Six years on, a rebel video showed the French-Colombian politician gaunt and despondent in a jungle camp where she wrote in a letter: "We live like the dead."
Another anniversary on Saturday arrived with a glimmer of hope for her family, who campaigned from Paris to the Vatican and from Caracas to Buenos Aires for a release deal between President Alvaro Uribe and rebels holding dozens of hostages.
"We want Ingrid to have strength. That she keeps fighting for life, for her freedom, to be by our side," said her mother Yolanda Pulecio before a Roman Catholic mass for Betancourt in Bogota. "God willing it will be soon."
Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian citizen whose children live in Paris, has become an international symbol for Colombia's hostages. Her plight is a major foreign policy issue for French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Latin America's oldest insurgency, the FARC has been weakened by Uribe's U.S.-backed security campaign and violence from the four-decade conflict has eased. But the rebels want to swap jailed fighters for 44 high-profile captives they hold.
International pressure has built recently for a hostage deal; France, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela are engaged in efforts to free captives, who include Betancourt and three Americans caught on an anti-drug mission in 2003.
Recent images of Betancourt and other captives in secret camps sparked outrage over the hostages' poor health, their haunted faces revealing the stress of living for years hidden in the jungle.
FARC—Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—in January released two female hostages to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, including Clara Rojas, who was caught with Betancourt when the two were traveling in southern Colombia.
In the statement on Saturday the FARC confirmed four ailing hostages could soon be released to Chavez, a Washington foe who says socialism counters U.S. influence. His participation has fueled tensions with Uribe, a White House ally.
New Hostage Release Soon
Families are desperately waiting for news on the release of local lawmakers Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran, Luis Eladio Perez and now also Jorge Eduardo Gechem, who authorities believe is seriously ill after six years in captivity.
"We will do this without rush or pause. Without pressure because security of the hostages and the guerrillas who will hand them over must come first," FARC leader Ivan Marquez told ABP newswire, which carries rebel statements.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner this week visited Caracas and Bogota to press for a hostage deal and suggested regional powerhouse Brazil could help in negotiations.
For many of the hostage families, Chavez offers the best hope as they believe the former soldier's left-wing credentials can persuade the Marxist-inspired FARC to give up hostages.
But his participation has triggered a diplomatic spat with Colombia. While he was praised for helping free the first two hostages, his call for more political recognition for the FARC has drawn angry rebukes from Bogota.
U.S. and E.U. officials label the FARC a drug-trafficking terrorist group and Colombia says recent hostage releases are an attempt by rebel commanders to pressure Uribe.
Attempts to reach a broader hostages-for-prisoners exchange are deadlocked over a FARC demand that Uribe pull troops back from a large swath of southern Colombia to facilitate a handover. Uribe that would allow the FARC to regroup.
For her family, each rare piece of evidence shows Betancourt in a worse state than before. She has tried to escape several times and often is shown chained up. In a recent letter she says she barely eats and is losing hope.
"This is now an emergency, the days are slipping away," said her husband Juan Carlos Lecompete. "If we have to wait two more years then perhaps Ingrid will not make it."
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