'Arrogant' Ingrid Betancourt attacked by fellow hostages

 

( Michel Spingler/AP)

Ingrid Betancourt, right, was welcomed back to France by the Sarkozys

Two Americans held captive for five years by Colombia’s Farc rebels have launched an extraordinary attack on their fellow jungle hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, accusing her of being haughty, manipulative and self-absorbed.

The hostages were rescued from the jungle last July and Ms Betancourt, who ran for the Colombian presidency in 2002, was personally welcomed back to her adopted homeland of France by President Sarkozy and his wife Carla.

In a joint memoir published this week, Out of Captivity, three American military contractors recount their struggle through 1,967 days of captivity. They describe the mind-numbing boredom of jungle cages, forced marches in chains and, ultimately, their miraculous rescue.

But the book has made headlines for the criticism by two of its writer of Ms Betancourt, who had already been held for a year when they were captured. The three each wrote separate sections of the book.

One of the Northrop Grumman contractors accuses her of stealing food and hoarding books and even of putting their lives in danger by telling rebel guards – incorrectly, he insists – that the three were CIA agents.

“I watched her try to take over the camp with an arrogance that was out of control,” Keith Stansell told the Associated Press news agency. “Some of the guards treated us better than she did.”

Mr Stansell, a 44-year-old ex-Marine, was freed along with Ms Betancourt, fellow contractors Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves, and 11 Colombians, when military agents posing as humanitarian workers in helicopters scooped them out of a jungle clearing in July.

Ms Betancourt declined to comment about the accusations but a former Colombian senator also held in the jungle gulag, Luis Eladio Perez, denied that Ms Betancourt ever told the rebels the Americans were CIA agents.

The three Americans take turns narrating their experiences in the 457-page chronicle. The other two agree with Mr Stansell on almost everything, but not always about Ms Bentancourt.

“These were literally concentration camps,” Mr Gonsalves said. "There was barely room to breathe.”