COLOMBIA'S most famous hostage was reunited with her children yesterday, their first meeting in almost six-and-a-half years. But even amid the emotion, Ingrid Betancourt was the consummate politician, planning to secure the release of the remaining prisoners in guerrilla hands.
As a French jet landed at Bogota's military airport carrying Melanie, 22, and Lorenzo, 19, as well as Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, Ms Betancourt could not wait.
As soon as the jet had stopped and stairs were placed against th
e fuselage, she was climbing up, so when the door opened, her children fell into her arms.
"Paradise, Nirvana must be something like I am feeling at this moment," said Ms Betancourt, as she hugged her children. She had last seen Lorenzo when he was just 13 and still small enough for her to hold. Yesterday, she was crushed in the hug of her now strapping son.
Whilst Ms Betancourt was freed along with 14 others, at least 25 political hostages and hundreds of other Colombians being held for ransom are still in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, (Farc). Their release has become her new mission.
"I am going to work for those hostages still being held," said Ms Betancourt, 46. "Not just to get them home, but to get them home soonest."
It was hard to believe that, just 24 hours earlier, Ms Betancourt had awoken in guerrilla captivity, prayed at 4am and prepared for another day of grinding boredom and suffering in Colombia's jungles.
Yet the Colombian military operation to rescue her and her colleagues was about to come to fruition. The army had infiltrated double agents into the Farc's First Front, the powerful unit that had the responsibility of guarding the hostages, the guerrillas' most powerful bargaining chips. The infiltrators had gained the trust of Cesar, the commander of the Front.
"We infiltrated the Farc, especially the groups holding the hostages," explained army chief, General Mario Montoya. "We made them think they were talking among themselves."
The infiltrators told Cesar that an international mission was coming by helicopter to pick up the hostages and take them to Alfonso Cano, the Farc commander-in-chief. To allay his suspicions, they said he was expected to come along as well to speak with his boss.
The hostages were all handcuffed, not just to make the operation look more convincing, but to ensure they did not try to attack their rescuers.
"Everything was minutely planned, down to the seats within the helicopter where the two Farc rebels were to sit," said General Montoya, who added that "the 22 minutes the helicopter was on the ground were the longest of my life".
The fear was the guerrillas would realise the mission was a ruse. Cesar had 60 of the Farc's best fighters with him, the inner protective circle which guarded the hostages and had orders to kill them rather than see them rescued.
However, Cesar and a bodyguard not only got on board the helicopter but handed over their AK-47s to a member of the mission, who insisted it was procedure. Out of sight and earshot was a second helicopter – special forces troops and strike aircraft, ready to move if the cover of the operation was blown.
Once airborne, undercover soldiers posing as members of the international mission, complete with Che Guevara t-shirts, overpowered the guerrillas and the helicopter headed for the military base of San Jose de Guaviare and freedom.
The woman that greeted her children with such energy yesterday did not resemble the one seen in a "proof of life" video released last year which showed Ms Betancourt gaunt, pale and looking gravely ill. She said yesterday she had looked death in the eye and had been "prepared to cross the bridge".
The successful rescue operation is a massive boost to hard-line president Alvaro Uribe. Backed by the United States, he has made the military defeat of Farc the cornerstone of his government. He had been criticised by Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, among others, for not negotiating with the guerrillas to secure the release of the hostages.
"This was the most devastating blow ever against the Farc," read the editorial in Colombia's best-selling newspaper El Tiempo. "To succeed in infiltrating an organisation that has been characterised by its impenetrable and monolithic character is a mortal blow."
Security forces have emphasised that the operation was "100 per cent Colombian", without US involvement. Analysts are saying the mission was world class, something to rival those of the Israeli or British special forces.
"We are at the end of the Farc," said Admiral Guillermo Barrera, the head of the Colombian navy.
But they still number some 9,000 fighters and have significant funds due to the drugs trade. It is too early to write them off.
Freedom force now 'funded by drugs'
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) was raised in the 1960s as a Communist-inspired peasant army, fighting for land reform and to reduce the gulf dividing rich and poor in the Andean country.
Branded a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union, the Farc has been driven on to the defensive by president Alvaro Uribe's US-backed security campaign, financed to the tune of $5.5 billion, mostly in military aid, since 2001.
US and Colombian authorities say the Farc has used the multibillion-dollar Colombian cocaine trade to fund its operations. Colombia's 40-year conflict is now often a fight over drug-producing land involving the Farc, right-wing paramilitaries and other narcotics gangs.
The Farc still holds sway in some rural areas, where it grows coca, the raw material for cocaine, and keeps kidnap victims hostage in secret jungle camps. Ms Betancourt and the three American defence contractors were the group's highest-profile hostages.
The Farc had been holding about 40 high-profile hostages to exchange for jailed rebels.
Violence has eased and the economy has expanded in Colombia's central, north and north-west urban areas, but the Farc is still a potent force in the southern jungle regions.
TIMELINE4am Ingrid Betancourt wakes and prays the rosary, as was her habit every morning.
7:30am "Comandante" Asprilla, a Farc commander, tells his charges to pack everything as they are about to be moved.
8:45 am The helicopter of the "international mission" arrives in Guaviare, a jungle-clad province in the east of Colombia where the hostages are being held.
10:50amThe helicopter arrives where "Cesar", the Farc leader in charge of the hostages, awaits. He is accompanied by army infiltrators, who have told him the hostages are to be transferred to where the guerrilla commander-in-chief Alfonso Cano, is waiting.
11:15amThe hostages, their hands bound, are led on to the helicopter.
11:30am The undercover soldiers on the helicopter overpower Cesar and the second guerrilla on board the helicopter.
1:10pmThe helicopter with the freed hostages arrives at the military base of San Jose de Guaviare.
1:50pmThe defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, holds a press conference to announce that the hostages are free.
4:25pmThe three American hostages board a plane bound for the United States.
5:10pmThe remaining hostages arrive at the military air base in Bogota, where an impromptu press conference is held on the tarmac.
