'Asked about reports that she was beaten and may have suffered yet worse physical abuse, she pauses for a long moment. She speaks in a low but steady voice: “There are things I’ve lived through which are very hard for me to get out. And when I was freed I told myself that I would never talk about them because if I did it would be even more painful than living them. That way they will stay in my head, no one will know so I can forget them. But once they’re out I will be dirtied even more.”
Doesn’t she plan to denounce the crimes committed by her guards? “If I do bear witness one day it will have to be to teach people something. I want people to understand that we all, deep down inside us, can be monsters.”
Even herself? “Yes, of course. You can find someone nice and kind and fun to talk to and then, because of an order or an ideology, they become an executioner. There are lots of ways of crushing others in everyday life. When someone speaks to you and you don’t answer them, that’s aggressive, you are humiliating them. When someone asks for help and you lie to get out of it, you’re denying their right to ask you for help.” '
'Ingrid Betancourt's homecoming,' The Sunday Times, 13 July, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4321326.ece
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