For farcs sake

The French media are in celebratory mode today. Ingrid Betancourt, the Franco-Colombian held hostage by the rebel 'Marxist' army in Colombia has been released. The story is that the Colombian army infiltrated Farc and released Betancourt and fifteen other hostages/political prisoners without firing a shot. . . .

The story does not really warrant all the fireworks. Sarkozy, revelling in the reflected glory, and the rest of his media stooges aren't interested in Colombia of course. Sure, Sarkozy intervened with wise words this morning calling on the Farc "to end its stupid struggle"- what a grasp of political history the clown has - but these media events and festivals really only serve ideological purposes. Betancourt like stories are needed for internal political consumption. There is no hint of the French telelvision (and certainly not British TV) doing any actual investigative work into what is going on in Colombia. Thus the spectator of this Betancourt saga, periodically dredged up with the usual fanfare and faux-outrage by the tired political elite, witnesses only the top few molecules of the iceberg of Colmbian politics.

For Betancourt is one fortunate celebrity hostage that the media have kept focused on and thereby have sustained her existence. For the thousands of other poverty stricken and marginalised Colombians arbitrarily detained by the country's farce government, there is no outcry, no candlelit vigil and no presidential offers to come to get them. They are the postmodren disappeared.

The hostage situation was a useful ideological spectacle for the French state. Firstly, it has allowed Sarkozy periodically to strengthen his weak political position when needs be - quite a lot as it happens. By siding with Betancourt and putting a lot of his credibility on the line, he appears the hero, the hard man and, importantly, at one with the Big Bosses in Washington. This distracts from the far more serious problems he faces and quells dissent in the UMP ranks, for a time.
Secondly, the one sided reportage of the hostage saga, the continual appearance of video footage showing Beatncourt sat on a chair looking frail, the squads of Farc militia trooping through jungle icily committed and fierce looking and the political/ideological vacuum the story was served up in - all reinforced the idea that these people holding this poor defenceless, innocent young woman are nothing other than violent criminals and Marxists too. The nod and the wink is that - look all the left are like this - this is the left this is what they do.
Thirdly, the charged term 'hostage' serves an ideological role too, of course. A hostage is somethone held illegally. A 'prisoner of war' has a different meaning. The Colombian government is described as holding 3000 political prisoners whereas, in reality, these are just as much hostages as the fifteen released earlier today. More closer to home, the subtle psychological affinity that has been built up over the word hostage, Betancourt and French politics, is perhaps nowhere better revealed than in the midst of a strike. It is no coincidence that the last bout of Betancourt fever came just around Christmas at the time of the train drivers' strike here in France. The state media message, constantly regurgitated over the air waves by politicians and (some misguided) commuters was that the unions were holding the public 'hostage'. Cut from the strike story to the (a priori unrelated) Betancourt story and the association is shown, inferred, cynically manipulating its audience, but never explicitly stated.


When the detumescence that follows this media orgasm has set in, Sarkozy will need another convenient little win-win saga to bolster his flagging political fortunes and Colombia will vanish from the French airwaves altogether.

("Data gathered by the Observatory confirm the advent of a new era. According to these figures, an exceptional increase in arbitrary detentions came into sight immediately after 2002, the presidential election year that brought Álvaro Uribe Vélez to power. From August 7th, 2002, to August 6th, 2004, at least 6332 people were detained arbitrarily in Colombia, while in the six years going back from June 2002 to July 1996 only 2896 citizens were held under arrest without any substantial evidence. From these figures it is possible to conclude there is a direct link between Uribe's political activity, which promotes itself through a program known as "Democratic security", and the violations of human rights in terms of arbitrary detentions.")