Educational Media Reviews Online

The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt is a documentary of a woman politician in strife ridden Columbia. Ingrid’s story is told by her family, friends, political associates, and by Ingrid herself. Based primarily on radio interviews that she gave prior to her kidnapping in February 2002, this documentary is the story of political corruption, illegal drugs, guerilla warfare, and a civil war that threatens to tear Columbia apart.

As a member of the House of Representatives and later the Senate, Ingrid was a vocal opponent of the established political system in Columbia. She claimed that the two major parties—the Conservatives and Liberals were corrupt. As a result, she created the Oxygen Green Party and won election to the Senate. In January 2002, she began a campaign to become president of Columbia. Ingrid claimed that Columbia has been torn by civil war for over forty years as a result of the machinations of the two major political parties. The guerilla army - Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) - controlled the majority of the rural areas of Columbia. As a proponent of negotiations with FARC, Ingrid participated in discussions with FARC and challenged them to stop the kidnapping of over 1,000 people a year for ransom or political gain. Shortly after the peace process broke down, she was kidnapped by FARC on February 23, 2002. Since then two videos have been released by FARC - one in July 2002 and one in August 2003 showing that she is alive.

This video is well made and the quality of the audio and video are good. Many of the conversations are in Spanish with English subtitles, yet this does not detract from the film, since most interviews are in English.