BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Ingrid Betancourt, whose plight in captivity came to embody Colombia's fratricidal social strife, embraced her grown children for the first time in more than six years Thursday and prepared for a trip to Paris and a state welcome in France.
The exhilarated Betancourt, thin but seemingly in good health and flashing a broad smile after being rescued from her rebel captors Wednesday, has generated a sense of euphoria and hope in a nation eager to shed the legacy of more than four decades of civil conflict and generalized despair.
"Paradise, nirvana, must be something very close to what I am feeling in this moment," she said on an airport tarmac after being reunited with her two children, Lorenzo, 19, and Melanie, 22, who arrived in Bogota on a French government aircraft. "These children are my light, my moon, my stars. It was the desire to see them again that drove me to get out of the jungle."
It was another nationally televised chapter in the sociopolitical drama that has transfixed Colombia and much of the world. Betancourt is a dual citizen of Colombia and France, and her case has become a cause celebre in France while generating intense interest throughout Latin America.
"This has been the triumph of life, the triumph of peace, the triumph of democracy and liberty," Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, a former political prisoner, said Thursday in her nation's capital, Santiago, at the other end of the continent.
Whereas three U.S. contractors released along with Betancourt were whisked off to a Texas military base for medical observation, she has been a ubiquitous and ecstatic presence here in the Colombian capital in the hours since her liberation in an audacious military rescue mission.
Long rumored near death, she has displayed a vivaciousness that has delighted compatriots following her family saga and tragedy like a real-life soap opera.
Betancourt, 46, lamented having lost precious years of her children's youth and vowed to "be stuck to them like chewing gum" from now on. The former senator was kidnapped by rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, while running for president on a peace platform more than six years ago.
Betancourt appeared far from the dour, downcast figure in a photograph released last year by the rebels.
After her release, she first appeared in public with braids and a floppy military cap, smiling and holding back tears. She seemed notably lacking in rancor, while harshly criticizing the rebels' hostage-taking strategy.
