What six years in captivity taught me about fear and faith

The first time

I felt fear

I was 41 years old.

People have always said I was brave.

When I was little,
I'd climb the highest tree,

and I'd approach any animal fearlessly.

I liked challenges.

My father used to say,

"A good steel can withstand
any temperature."

And when I entered into
Colombian politics,

I thought I'd be able
to withstand any temperature.

I wanted to end corruption;

I wanted to cut ties between politicians
and drug traffickers.

The first time I was elected,

it was because I called out, by name,

corrupt and untouchable politicians.

I also called out the president

for his ties to the cartels.

That's when the threats started.

I had to send my very young children
out of the country one morning,

hidden, all the way to the airport,
in the French ambassador's armored car.

Days later,

I was the victim of an attack,
but emerged unharmed.

The following year,

the Colombian people elected me
with the highest number of votes.

I thought people applauded me
because I was brave.

I, too, thought I was brave.

But I wasn't.

I had simply never before experienced

true fear.

That changed

February 23, 2002.

At the time, I was a presidential
candidate in Colombia

promoting my campaign agenda,

when I was detained
by a group of armed men.

They were wearing uniforms
with military garments.

I looked at their boots; they were rubber.

And I knew

that the Colombian army
wore leather boots.

I knew that these were FARC guerrillas.

From that point on,
everything happened very quickly.

The commando leader ordered us
to stop the vehicle.

Meanwhile, one of his men
stepped on an antipersonnel mine

and flew through the air.

He landed, sitting upright,

right in front of me.

We made eye contact

and it was then
that the young man understood:

his rubber boot with his leg still in it

had landed far away.

(Sighs)

He started

screaming like crazy.

And the truth is,

I felt -- as I feel right now,
because I'm reliving these emotions --

I felt at that moment
that something inside of me was breaking

and that I was being infected
with his fear.

My mind went blank and couldn't think;

it was paralyzed.

When I finally reacted,

I said to myself,

"They're going to kill me

and I didn't say goodbye to my children."

As they took me into
the deepest depths of the jungle,

the FARC soldiers announced

that if the government didn't negotiate,

they'd kill me.

And I knew

that the government wouldn't negotiate.

From that point on,

I went to sleep in fear every night --

cold sweats,

shaking,

stomachache,

insomnia.

But worse than that
was what was happening to my mind,

because my memory was being erased:
all the phone numbers,

addresses,

names of very dear people,

even significant life events.

And so,

I began to doubt myself,
to doubt my mental health.

And with doubt came desperation,

and with desperation came depression.

I was suffering notorious
behavioral changes

and it wasn't just paranoia
in moments of panic.

It was distrust,

it was hatred

and it was also the urge to kill.

This, I realized

when they had me
chained by the neck to a tree.

They kept me outside that day,

during a tropical downpour.

I remember feeling an urgent need
to use the bathroom.

"Whatever you have to do,

you'll do in front of me,

bitch,"

the guard screamed at me.

And I

decided at that moment

to kill him.

And for days,

I was planning, trying to find
the right moment, the right way to do it,

filled with hatred,

filled with fear.

Then suddenly,

I rose up,

snapped out of it

and thought:

"I'm not going to become one of them.

I'm not going to become an assassin.

I still have enough freedom

to decide

who I want to be."

That's when I learned that fear

brought me face to face with myself.

It forced me

to align my energies,

to align my meridians.

I learned that facing fear

could become a pathway to growth.

A lot of emotions arise
when I talk about all of this,

but when I think back,

I'm able to identify

the steps I took to do it.

I want to share three of them with you.

The first

was to be guided by principles,

because I realized

that in the midst of panic
and mental block,

if I followed my principles,

I acted correctly.

I remember the first night

in a concentration camp
that the guerrillas had built

in the middle of the jungle,

with 12-foot-high bars,

barbed wire,

lookouts in the four corners

and armed men pointing
guns at us 24 hours a day.

That morning, the first morning,

some men arrived, yelling:

"Count off! Count off!"

My fellow hostages woke up, startled,

and began to identify themselves
in numbered sequence.

But when it was my turn,

I said,

"Ingrid Betancourt.

If you want to know if I'm here,
call me by my name."

The guards' fury

was nothing compared
to that of the other hostages,

because, obviously they were scared --

we were all scared --

and they were afraid that, because of me,
they would be punished.

But for me,

beyond fear was the need
to defend my identity,

to not let them turn me into
a thing or a number.

That was one of the principles:

to defend

what I considered to be human dignity.

But make no mistake:

the guerrillas had it all

very well analyzed --

they had been kidnapping for years,

and they had developed a technique

to break us,

to defeat us, to divide us.

And so,

the second step

was to learn how to build
supportive trust,

to learn how to unite.

The jungle is like a different planet.

It's a world

of shadows, of rain,

with the hum of millions of bugs --

?Las majiñas, "kissing bugs," bullet ants.

I didn't stop scratching a single day
while I was in the jungle.

And of course, there were tarantulas,
scorpions, anacondas ...

I once came face to face
with a 24-foot long anaconda

that could have swallowed me in one bite.

Jaguars ...

But I want to tell you

that none of these animals
did us as much harm

as the human beings.

The guerrillas terrorized us.

They spread rumors.

Among the hostages,
they sparked betrayals,

jealousy,

resentment,

mistrust.

The first time I escaped
for a long time was with Lucho.

Lucho had been a hostage
for two years longer than I had.

We decided to tie ourselves up

with ropes

to have the strength
to lower ourselves into that dark water

full of piranhas and alligators.

What we did was, during the day,
we would hide in the mangroves.

And at night,

we would leave, get in the water,

and we would swim
and let the current carry us.

That went on for several days.

But Lucho

became sick.

He was diabetic,

and he fell into a diabetic coma.

So the guerrillas captured us.

But after having lived
through that with Lucho,

after having faced fear together, united,

not punishment, not violence -- nothing --

could ever again divide us.

What's certain is,

all the guerrillas' manipulation
was so damaging to us

that even today,

among some of the hostages

from back then,

tensions linger,

passed down from all that poison

that the guerrillas created.

The third step

is very important to me,

and it's a gift
that I want to give to you.

The third step is to learn
how to develop faith.

I want to explain it like this:

Jhon Frank Pinchao

was a police officer suboficial

who had been a hostage
for more than eight years.

He was famous for being
the biggest scaredy-cat of us all.

But Pincho -- I called him "Pincho" --

Pincho decided that he wanted to escape.

And he asked me to help him.

By that point, I basically had
a master's degree in escape attempts.

(Laughter)

So

we got started but we had a delay,

because first, Pincho
had to learn how to swim.

And we had to carry out
all these preparations in total secrecy.

Anyway, when we finally
had everything ready,

Pincho came up to me
one afternoon and said,

"Ingrid, suppose I'm in the jungle,

and I go around and around in circles,
and I can't find the way out.

What do I do?"

"Pincho,

you grab a phone,

and you call the man upstairs."

"Ingrid, you know I don't believe in God."

"God doesn't care. He'll still help you."

(Applause)

It rained all night that night.

The following morning,

the camp woke up to a big commotion,

because Pincho had fled.

They made us dismantle the camp
and we started marching.

During the march,

the head guerrillas told us
that Pincho had died,

and that they were going
to find his remains

eaten by an anaconda.

Seventeen days passed --

and believe me, I counted them,
because they were torture for me.

But on the seventeenth day,

the news exploded from the radio:

Pincho was free and obviously alive.

And this was the first thing he said:

"I know my fellow hostages are listening.

Ingrid,

I did what you told me.

I called the man upstairs,

and he sent me the patrol
that rescued me from the jungle."

That was an extraordinary moment,

because ...

obviously fear is contagious.

But faith is, too.

Faith isn't rational or emotional.

Faith

is an exercise of the will.

It's having discipline over the will.

It's what allows us to transform
everything that we are --

our weaknesses, our frailties,

into strength, into power.

It's truly a transformation.

It's what gives us the strength

to stand up

in the face of fear

look above it,

and see beyond it.

I hope you remember that,

because I know we all need

to connect with that strength
we have inside of us

for the times when there's a storm
raging around our boat.

Many, many, many, many years passed

before I could return to my house.

But when they lifted us, handcuffed,
into the helicopter

that finally took us out of the jungle,

everything happened as quickly
as when they kidnapped me.

In an instant,

I saw the guerrilla commander at my feet,

gagged,

and the rescue leader,

yelling:

"We're the Colombian army!

You are free!"

The shriek

that came out of all of us

when we regained our freedom,

continues to vibrate in me to this day.

Now,

I know they can divide all of us,

they can manipulate us all with fear.

The "No" vote on the peace
referendum in Colombia;

Brexit;

the idea of a wall
between Mexico and the United States;

Islamic terrorism --

they're all examples
of using fear politically

to divide and recruit us.

We all feel fear.

But we can all avoid being recruited

using the resources we have --
our principles, unity, faith.

Yes, fear is part of the human condition,

as well as being necessary for survival.

But above all,

it's the guide by which each of us builds

our identity, our personality.

It's true, I was 41 years old
the first time I felt fear,

and feeling fear was not my decision.

But it was my decision
what to do with that fear.

You can survive

crawling along, fearful.

But you can also

rise above the fear,

rise up, spread your wings,

and soar, fly high, high, high, high,
until you reach the stars,

where all of us want to go.

Thank you.

(Applause)