Colombia: A swap may be the only way to save Ingrid Betancourt, her husband tells Lara Marlowe in Paris.
Forty months, 1,217 days. . . However Juan Carlos Lecompte counts, it feels like an eternity - a third of their married life - since his wife Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped by Colombian Marxist guerrillas on February 23rd, 2002.
Lecompte, an architect by training, has devoted the intervening years to seeking Betancourt's release. His book, In Ingrid's Name, is published in Spanish and French. Its purpose, Lecompte said in an interview on the eve of his arrival in Ireland today, "is for Ingrid to know she is not alone, that we are fighting hard and will not give up until she is free".
A citizen of France and Colombia, Betancourt is a political crusader who fought corruption and called for dialogue with the leftist guerrillas who have been fighting the Colombian government for most of her 43 years. She was elected a deputy, then a senator. But her 2002 presidential campaign was cut short by her abduction.
Lecompte has organised sit-ins with the families of other hostages in Bogotá Cathedral. He travels to remote areas that support the Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces (FARC), the group holding his wife. And he visits captured FARC members in government prisons. He hands out copies of his book, and photographs of Ingrid's children from her first marriage, Melanie (20), and Lorenzo (17).
Last month Lecompte dropped 10,000 photographs of Melanie and Lorenzo from a small aircraft over the Colombian jungle. On June 5th, three days before his departure for Europe, a stranger's voice on his answering machine claimed she had received the book and photo.
Lecompte came to Europe to receive the Liberty Prize in Milan on Betancourt's behalf. That same day, Clementina Cantoni, an Italian aid worker, was freed in Kabul.
The following day, the French hostage Florence Aubenas and her interpreter, Hussein Hanun, were freed in Baghdad. Lecompte took the releases as a good omen.
Betancourt's photograph hangs on the Paris town hall, where Lecompte was to participate in a rally with Aubenas last night.
The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has accepted Lecompte's invitation to visit Colombia in September.
For the government of president Alvaro Uribe, Lecompte says: "It's as if I lost my dog." No security officials have contacted him or investigated his wife's kidnapping. "The only contact is an annual letter, demanding to know why Ingrid Betancourt hasn't paid her income tax," he says bitterly.
Some 10,000 people are killed in Colombia every year, and Lecompte says the only hope of saving his wife is an exchange of government prisoners for hostages held by the FARC. Previous governments carried out such swaps. But the right-wing president Uribe, whom Lecompte describes as "a photocopy of George W Bush", refuses to "talk to terrorists".
Lecompte hopes that public opinion will lead French and European governments to put pressure on Uribe to negotiate an exchange.
Lecompte often fears he will never see his wife again. "She could be moving through the jungle with the guerrillas and the government bombs them. Or she could step on a land mine. She could be killed very easily; 95 per cent of the time, when the government tries to free hostages, they get killed."
* Juan Carlos Lecompte is the guest of honour at a lunch held by the South Dublin County Council today. He will attend the opening of the Gorey Summer School this evening. Members of the public can meet him at International Books, South Frederick Street, Dublin, at 1pm-2pm on Tuesday, June 28th, or in Galway on Wednesday, June 29th, at 3pm-4pm at Lanka Dhama, 6 Dominic Street Upper.