Jul 3, 2008, 16:09 GMT
Bogota - With tender strokes and tears, the liberated Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt was reunited Thursday with her two children, Melanie and Lorenzo, their first contact in more than six years.
Her children - both young adults who live in France with their father and who have lobbied intensively around the world for their mother's release - arrived at the Catam military base near Bogota Thursday morning, aboard an Airbus A319 belonging to the French Presidency.
'These are my little kids, they are my pride, my reason to live, my moon, my stars,' the one-time presidential candidate told reporters after the reunion.
'I told them they have grown and that they are going to have to put up with me, because I am going to be sticky like chewing-gum and I am not going to stop kissing them,' the liberated hostage said.
She greeted her children on the plane stairs, in a long-awaited scene full of hugs, kissing and tears. She said the last time she had seen her son, who now towers over her, he was small enough for her to pick up. That was more than six years ago.
CNN showed video of Betancourt, a Colombian presidential candidate when she was kidnapped in February 2002, and her children stroking each others' faces.
As she did when she emerged from the jungle on Wednesday wearing fatigues, Betancourt wore a flower woven into her braid in the reunion scenes captured on board an airplane.
Betancourt, 46, holds dual French-Colombian citizenship and was the most high-profile hostage held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). She was freed in an elaborate ruse carried out by the Colombian military, along with 14 others, including three Americans.
Melanie and Lorenzo Delloye were accompanied by their father, Betancourt's first husband Fabrice Delloye, and by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Betancourt was reportedly planning to travel to France later Thursday, to personally thank French President Nicolas Sarkozy for his efforts to seek her release.
On Wednesday, Colombian commandos posing as fellow rebels tricked FARC into transferring 15 hostages - Betancourt, three US contractors and 11 military and police officers - into their custody, allowing them to helicopter the captives to freedom. Not a shot was fired, and two rebels were arrested.
The daring mission was the result of months of planning that included an infiltration of guerrilla structures. International leaders have applauded Colombia for the successful feat.
The US military was involved in the planning of the rescue and provided support to the Colombian military, National Security Advisor Gordon Johndroe said. Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who was in Colombia at the time, was briefed about the operation the day before.
But Colombian President Alvero Uribe also noted that the commandos could have fired out of the helicopter and killed FARC rebels on the ground, but did not - a token of reconciliation as he once more extended a plea to bring FARC to the negotiating table, as he has done with right-wing paramilitary troops.
The Betancourt family had repeatedly opposed any attempt to free the former presidential candidate by force, but Melanie Delloye stressed that the successful operation was something else. It was, she said, an intelligence operation, not a military operation, and that is completely different.'
Reunited with her mother, Melanie Delloye did not forget the hundreds of hostages still held by FARC.
'I am still thinking of the people who are there. We have to keep fighting for those people,' she stressed. 'It was our turn now and we will fight for the remaining hostages.'
Betancourt called upon regional leaders including presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador to continue seeking the release of other hostages through 'ties of friendship, of fraternity, of trust' with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
The condition for foreign involvement, however, is 'that they help free the hostages, not strengthen the war in Colombia,' Betancourt said.
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