Ingrid Betancourt

Your detractors argue that all you want is publicity and that you're self-righteous -- that you think of yourself as the lone crusader fighting Colombian corruption. How would you respond to such criticism?

I would say that you may choose your life, but you don't choose the suffering that you have to overcome. It's not pleasant to be fighting drug traffickers. It's not pleasant to fight corrupt politicians, to confront senators and representatives who insult you and threaten you. So I think it's very unfair to say that what I have done is just to gain publicity. There are other ways to get publicity. One way is to get naked in the road. Then you'll have publicity but you won't be at risk, it's not dangerous.

The criticism is really a way of undermining my struggle [against corruption]. My struggle annoys a lot of people in Colombia. There are many people who are not comfortable with what I do because they are using Colombia to tolerate corrupt attitudes and cover them and camouflage them.

But we need to raise the standards of our ambition. We need to have high standards for our democracy. We cannot just say we are a democracy and have institutions that don't work, have corruption everywhere, have human rights violations as a systematic way of dealing with our problems. This has to change.

In your book, you point fingers at those who are corrupt and you obviously believe that your sacrifices will eventually be rewarded. Yet, the murder rate in Colombia has nearly doubled since 1995 and many feel that the country is worse off than when you first entered politics in the late '80s. Do you ever feel like a failure? And in a country so filled with confusion -- in which you too have been accused of corruption -- how do you know who is being honest and who is lying?

It is not possible to fight corruption as I have been fighting it if you have something to hide. It's easy to throw dirt and say she's done this, she's done that, but the truth is that I am very lonely in this. If I had done something wrong, I can assure you that I would be in prison because I have so many enemies. This is a game where you cannot play in two camps; you have to be very straight.

But do you think it's obvious, who is honest and who is not?

Well, in Colombia there is a gray zone. Many things that are considered corrupt in other countries are considered normal in Colombia. We have to be very radical in order to change public opinion about what is corruption. We have to really ask for accountability in order to change the idea of what politicians can and cannot do.

The way of knowing who is corrupt and who is not is simple: You have to investigate. Everything that I have said in my book has appeared in the media in Colombia. The only difference is that I have put the picture together. In Colombia, the information will appear as a little line at the end of the page of the newspaper. They won't give it the importance it has. All I've done is put it all into context.

You're far down in the polls and two of the candidates who are running for president -- Horacio Serpa and Noemi Sanin -- you denounce as corrupt protectors of the Colombian status quo. Do you think you can beat them? Or is your campaign simply an attempt to raise public awareness about the dangers of corruption?

This is a very serious campaign. I have worked to have a very professional campaign. I have a big headquarters in Colombia and a 100 person staff. There are many people who would like to see this as a symbolic campaign, but it's not. It's a very true and serious campaign.

My chances? I think I have a 100 percent chance. The elections are open to everyone. The only thing that I fear is fraud in the elections. That's why I'm asking the Americans to help me in having people cover the elections. Journalists, politicians, congressmen and women -- we want them to come to Colombia to help us guarantee that we will have fair elections. Because when you present yourself in an election, you're willing to lose but you only want to lose in a fair way. You don't want your elections stolen from you.

I know I'm low in the polls but those are official polls. I don't really believe in them. When I was a candidate for the Senate, an official poll came out -- it was everywhere, in all the papers -- and I didn't appear in the list of those who were going to be elected. And I became the senator who was elected with the highest number of votes in the country.

What will you do if you lose the election? How will you continue to fight if you're not in office?

There's no other choice but to win. But I will continue fighting in or out of the presidency. We have to win this battle against corruption. Perhaps the only thing that I really want to convey to Americans is that they must understand that if we continue tolerating corrupting governments all over the world, we will always be at risk -- all of us. Because corrupt governments nourish drug trafficking and terrorism and this is what is tearing my country apart. I'm fighting to clean my country to have a democracy that's as strong and as effective as the one you have here in America, Europe and other countries. It's the basics that we're asking for, not the luxuries.

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