HARPERCOLLINS AUTHOR KIDNAPPED IN COLOMBIA

Almost Famous

Revolutionaries are often master self-promoters, so it's only natural for a
PR professional to turn political activist. Case in point: on February 24,
Harpercollins publicity director Justin Loeber e-mailed U.S. Journalists,
announcing that colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt had been
kidnapped by left-wing guerrillas and urging the media to use "the power of
publicity" to call attention to her plight. With the magic of PR, he
suggested, we might save her life.

Loeber's motives are not entirely altruistic. Two months ago, HarperCollins
published Betancourt's memoir, Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to
Reclaim Colombia, which was a bestseller in France and Colombia but has
languished in the States.

Nevertheless, this is an appealing cause for publicity. The left-wing
guerrillas, or FARC, kidnapped 40-year-old Betancourt because of her high
profile, and they are holding her and an estimated 200 other hostages, whom
they hope to release in exchange for guerrillas currently being held by the
government, sometime after the presidential election on May 26. Though
Betancourt is trailing in the polls, her central platform, eliminating
government corruption, is one that sorely needs to be addressed.

Loeber likens Betancourt's kidnapping to "censorship" in a country where
freedom-fighters are often "annihilated." If she were American, he
suggests, "she could be the next Daniel Pearl."

The connection may seem tenuous--until his kidnapping and murder in
Pakistan, Pearl was a wise-cracking Wall Street Journal reporter, while
Betancourt was known as an earnest political reformer. But like Pearl,
Betancourt "provides a face that most Americans can relate to," says writer
Mark Schapiro, whose profile of Betancourt appears in the April issue of
Elle. Not only does she "look like an American soccer mom," he says, but
"her English is perfect, she's attractive, and she's very smart, sincere,
and articulate." While Pearl's wife is expecting her first child,
Betancourt is the mother of two children whom she sent to live outside of
Colombia after receiving a death threat in 1996.

Story-wise, the most appealing thing about Betancourt is that she is likely
to remain alive, and any journalist reeling from Pearl's death might find
cause for hope in reporting on her plight. But Loeber says it won't do any
good to "fly down and crash a piece" when the hostage is released, as one
prominent TV anchor has offered to do. "We need news people and America
now." The timing of the Elle article is sheer coincidence. Last fall, after
hearing about the memoir, senior features editor Ben Dickinson assigned a
profile to Schapiro, who was headed to Bogota on other business. Schapiro
attended the launch of the candidate's presidential campaign and a holiday
dinner with her family; the result is the first U.S. magazine profile of
Betancourt.

Bogota is known territory for Schapiro, who has written about Latin America
and Eastern Europe for Harper's, The Atlantic, and The Nation. "I have
covered Colombia for the last five years," he says, "and I love the
country's spirit and culture. It's a dynamic, interesting place with great
energy, a lively opposition, a lively press, and a lot of freedom." One of
the reasons he wanted to write about Betancourt was "to show that there's
more to this country than drugs and corruption."

Drugs and corruption are, of course, the central themes of Betancourt's
career. But first she had to make the transformation from privileged
daughter of a French ambassador to privileged wife and mother to privileged
member of the Colombian congress, to which she was first elected in 1994.
Following the model of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan,
who was assassinated in 1989, she chose corruption as the main plank of her
platform, criticizing drug lords, politicians, and industrialists alike.
Then she was shocked--shocked!--to find herself the subject of smear
campaigns in the press. In the book, she recounts how her lawyer told her,
"My child, you don't realize what a monster you've challenged. They . . .
don't have anything on you, but they will stop at nothing to discredit you."

Despite the warning, Betancourt did not stop speaking truth to power. In
1996, she went on a hunger strike to call for an independent investigation
of former president Ernesto Samper, who had allegedly accepted
contributions from the Cali cartel. In 1998, she formed her own political
party and was elected to the Colombian Senate with a record number of
votes. When current president Andres Pastrana failed to deliver on a
campaign promise to fight corruption, she publicly denounced him for his
betrayal.

In a recent book review, The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung found it
difficult to take Betancourt seriously, given her "air of combined noblesse
oblige and naivete." Even Schapiro admits that his subject has "a little
bit of the savior complex. She sees herself as the Joan of Arc of Colombia,
and for that reason she doesn't have a lot of support in the
intelligentsia." Nevertheless, he says, "She is heroic in her ability to go
up against extremely established powerful figures in Colombia. She's made a
lot of very powerful enemies."

A brief report cannot do justice to the implications of Betancourt's
kidnapping for Colombia. But Schapiro believes, as do most observers, that
the FARC has blown whatever credibility it once had as a political force.
He predicts that the latest kidnapping will unintentionally contribute to
the election of Alvaro Uribe Velez, a right-wing candidate whose proposal
for an all-out military attack on the guerrillas is now picking up support
from Pastrana and the U.S.

Betancourt's book argues that military intervention alone cannot put a dent
in the Colombian drug trade. Indeed, she says that if the U.S. wants to
control the flood of drugs across our borders, we must support campaign
finance laws that will prevent drug lords from controlling the government,
the legislature, and the judiciary in her country. Given that she has
risked her life to make this point, she probably knows what she is talking
about.

Interested parties are encouraged to send e-mail to
ingridporlapaz@hotmail.com, expressing support for Betancourt's policies
and calling on Pastrana to hold off on military escalation that could
endanger her life and those of the other hostages.