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Hostage details captors' hatred for her

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Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, shown at a military base near Paris July 4, 2008. (UPI Photo/ David Silpa) 
Published: Sept. 28, 2009 at 10:55 AM

TORONTO, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt says she is convinced the guerrillas who held her in the Colombian jungle for more than six years clearly hated her.

Betancourt told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in an exclusive interview scheduled for broadcast Monday night that she represented everything her captors despised.

"I was a politician. They hated politicians," she said. "I was a person with some education. They had none, so they thought I (had) a privileged social background and they hated me for that."

Betancourt, a former Columbian presidential candidate, was captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) in 2002. She and 14 other hostages were rescued last year by a group of Columbia military agents posting as FARC members.

"Sometimes I had one person that was human, and it was like a gift," Betancourt said. "But mostly they were trained to be very cold, cruel."

Betancourt was in Canada to receive several awards.

Topics: Ingrid Betancourt
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