Betancourt held 'chained by neck'
POSTED: 0633 GMT (1433 HKT), May 19, 2007 http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/05/19/Colombia.betancourt.ap/inde x.html?eref=edition_world BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt is forced to sleep chained by her neck as punishment for having tried to escape from her rebel captors five times, an escaped hostage told family members of the dual French-Colombian citizen. Deploring these "concentration camp" conditions, an angry President Alvaro Uribe ordered his military to intensify efforts Friday to free Betancourt and three American military contractors being held by leftist rebels. The high-profile prisoners and eight more hostages were being held in the same Amazon jungle camp from where police officer Jhon Frank Pinchao escaped April 28, after eight years in captivity of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. After 17 days trekking, swimming and crawling through the jungle, Pinchao was found Wednesday by an anti-narcotics police patrol. ( <http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/05/17/Colombia.hostage.escape/in dex.html> Full story) On Thursday he met with dozens of family members of FARC hostages at a police hospital where he is being treated for malnutrition and exposure-related skin problems. During the brief meeting, he described how Betancourt was chained by the neck to other prisoners every night -- and sometimes for 24 hours at a time -- in order to prevent her from escaping, family members present at the meeting told The Associated Press on Friday. "They're treating her like an animal," said her husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, adding that he feared her captors would harshen their treatment of the hostages following Pinchao's escape. "The guerrillas lie when they say they're treating women and prisoners humanely." Pinchao, he said, was kept with Betancourt for almost three years. Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002 while campaigning for the presidency on a leftist ticket in southern Colombia, a longtime rebel stronghold. In 2003, the FARC sent a proof-of-life video of Betancourt and her running mate Clara Rojas, who Pinchao said gave birth three years ago in captivity to a child named Emanuel. The father is a guerrilla, Pinchao said. After suffering a bout of hepatitis a year ago, Pinchao said, Betancourt remains thin but is otherwise in good health and recently was his daily exercise partner. Betancourt passes her days discussing politics with other hostages, reading and keeping a journal of her long captivity, according to Lecompte and Yolanda Pulecio, Betancourt's mother. She also managed to safeguard from her captors a radio with which she receives daily messages from loved ones transmitted over a radio program dedicated to the hostages. "I send Ingrid a message every morning at 5 a.m. (local time) and ask myself whether she can hear me or not," Pulecio said. "Now I know she can hear me." Uribe, at a military ceremony, said Pinchao's testimony "demonstrates that the FARC's concentration camps are more cruel than the concentration camps of the Nazis." He also exhorted his top generals to draft up plans to free the hostages, despite the opposition of family members who fear any rescue operation would end in a bloodbath. "Generals we're going to rescue Ingrid Betancourt," said a visibly angered Uribe. Moments later he added "and let there be no doubt in the U.S. Congress that we're also going to militarily rescue the FARC's three American hostages." Uribe was referring to three Northrop Grumman Corp. contractors who were on a drug surveillance mission in Colombia's cocaine-producing southern jungle when their plane crashed on Feb. 13, 2003. One of the American hostages, Marc Gonsalves, is currently suffering from hepatitis, Pinchao told journalists on Wednesday. According to Lecompte, Pinchao said that in the shorter time he was with the Americans he did not see them being chained like Betancourt because none had attempted to escape. Speaking Friday on French television after a meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, Betancourt's daughter, Melanie Betancourt, denounced Uribe's call for a military rescue, saying it put her mother's life in danger. France's foreign ministry said in a statement it was "verifying the contents of the comments by President Uribe. We remind that our position on the matter remains constant, which is that France opposes all military action that would put the lives of the hostages in danger." Also Friday, authorities said Swedish citizen Roland Erick Larson, 68, and his Colombian wife, Diana Patricia Pena, 36, had been kidnapped two days earlier at their farm in northern Colombia. Swedish Ambassador Lena Nordstrom said she had no information about who was responsible. 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