Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia

Ingrid Betancourt

Oct 2009 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

Ingrid Betancourt, a senator and a presidential candidate in Colombia, grew up among diplomats, literati, and artists who congregated at her parents' elegant home in Paris, France. Her father served as Colombia's ambassador to UNESCO and her mother, a political activist, continued her work on behalf of the country's countless children whose lives were being destroyed by extreme poverty and institutional neglect. Intellectually, Ingrid was influenced by Pablo Neruda and other Latin American writers like Gabriel García Márquez, who frequented her parents' social circle. She studied at École de Sciences Politiques de Paris, a prestigious academy in France.

From this charmed life, Ingrid Betancourt -- not yet thirty, happily married to a French diplomat, and a mother of two children -- returned to her native country in the late 1980s. On what was initially just a visit, she found her country under internal siege from the drug cartels and the corrupt government that had allowed them to flourish. After seeing what had become of Colombia's democracy, she didn't feel she could leave.

Until Death Do Us Part is the deeply personal story of a woman who gave up a life of comfort and safety to become a political leader in a country being slowly demolished by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. It is a country where democracy has been sacrificed for the well-being of the few, where international criminals determine policy, and where political assassinations are a way of life. Now forty, Ingrid Betancourt has been elected and reelected as a representative and as a senator in Colombia's national legislature. She has founded a political party that has openly confronted Colombia's leaders and has earned the respect of a nation. And now she has become a target of the establishment and the drug cartels behind it.

Forced to move her children out of Colombia for protection against death threats, Ingrid Betancourt remained and continued to fight the political structure that has crumbled under the destructive power of the paramilitary forces, the financial omnipotence of the drug cartels, and the passivity of governmentfor-sale. Here is a political cocktail that has destroyed countless lives in Colombia and has spread to countries beyond its borders.

A memoir of a life in politics that reads like a fastpaced political thriller, Until Death Do Us Part -- already an international bestseller -- is a hair-raising account of one woman's fight against the establishment. It is a story of a woman whose love for her country and faith in democracy gave her the courage to stand up to the power that has subjugated, intimidated, or corrupted all those who opposed it. A chilling account of the dangerous, byzantine machine that runs Colombia, it is also an inspiring story of privilege, sacrifice, and true patriotism.

About the author

Ingrid Betancourt was born in Bogotá, Colombia on December 25, 1961. She graduated from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. She returned to Colombia in 1989 and worked at the Ministry of Finance before entering politics. She was elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1994 and launched a political party, the Green Oxygen Party. She was elected to the office of senator in 1998. She was campaigning for the Colombian presidency in rebel controlled areas when she was taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on February 23, 2002. She was held hostage for six and a half years before being rescued by Colombian security forces on July 2, 2008. She has written two books entitled Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia and Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle. She has received numerous awards including the Légion d'Honneur and the 2008 Concord Prince of Asturias Award.