The Franco-Columbian politician, Ingrid Betancourt, has been bestowed with the 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, as made public today in Oviedo by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

After being held hostage for more than six years in the Colombian jungle, Ingrid Betancourt has become a worldwide symbol of freedom and human resistance in the face of severe hardship. Her struggle in favour of democracy has been an encouraging example of dignity and valour for the whole world.

This candidature was backed by Prince of Asturias Award Laureates Muhammad Yunus, Vicente Ferrer, Enrique Iglesias, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Umberto Eco, Anthony Giddens, Mary Robinson, Woody Allen, Simone Veil, Belisario Betancurt, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Václav Havel, Mário Soares, Jacques Delors, Nicolás Castellanos, Luis María Anson and Juan Antonio Samaranch; by Prince of Asturias Foundation members Antonio Garrigues, Francisco Daurella and Fernando Masaveu; by France´s ambassador to Spain, Bruno Delaye, and by Spain´s Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos.

Born in Bogotá (Colombia) in 1961, Ingrid Betancourt is the daughter of a former Education Minister, Gabriel Betancourt, and of the former Member of Congress and former Ambassador to Guatemala, Yolanda Pulecio. She studied Political Science in France, where her father held the post of ambassador to the UNESCO. When there she married a French diplomat, thus obtaining said nationality. She returned to Colombia in 1990 and worked as an advisor in the Treasury Department and in the Foreign Trade Department.

Betancourt´s political career commenced in 1994, when she stood for parliament as a candidate for the governing Liberal Party. A staunch defender of freedom and human rights, her efforts during her period in public office focussed on fostering democracy and social justice, the fight against corruption, drug trafficking and violence, in pursuit of a different, more promising future for the children and youth of Colombia. She abandoned the Liberal Party in 1998 and stood for the Senate for the Green Oxygen Party. She resigned office to stand in the presidential elections for the New Colombia Movement in 2002, the year in which she was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) along with her campaign director, Clara Rojas, who was freed on the 10th January 2008.

She wrote two books during her period of public office: Sí sabía (1996), about the alleged funding of Ernesto Samper´s presidential campaign by the Cali Cartel, and La rabia en el corazón (2001), published in France, in which she criticized the widespread state of corruption of her country´s political class. Her kidnapping has had major repercussions all over the world and, as a result of international mobilisation in favour of her release, she has been named Honorary Citizen of more than a thousand cities in over twenty countries. In 2004, she was awarded the Dutch Cross of Resistance, which was collected by her mother and daughter. Support committees were also created, forming the International Federation of Committees for Ingrid Betancourt, whose first general assembly was held in Paris in 2005. That same year, a major mobilisation also took place to demand her release, in view of the worrying news regarding her precarious state of health. The Colombian Army finally put an end to her captivity on 2nd July 2008 in an operation in which three US citizens and eleven Colombian soldiers were also freed.

Named Honorary President of the International Congress of Green Parties held in São Paulo when she was still held captive, once released Ingrid Betancourt was decorated with the Rank of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy during the celebrations of the French National Holiday on 14th July 2008 and has been bestowed with the Women´s World Award as "Woman of the Year 2008".
The Prince of Asturias Foundation's statues establish that the aim of the Awards is to acknowledge and extol 'scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work carried out by individuals, groups or institutions worldwide'. Consonant with this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord 'will be bestowed upon the person, persons or institution whose work has made an exemplary and outstanding contribution to mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence amongst men, to the struggle against injustice, poverty, disease or ignorance, to the defence of freedom, or whose work has widened the horizons of knowledge or has been outstanding in protecting and preserving mankind´s heritage´.

This year a total of 51 candidatures from Argentina, Cape Verde, Colombia, Chile, China, Ecuador, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar, Peru, South Africa, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Vietnam and Spain ran for the award.

This is the last of eight Prince of Asturias Awards to be bestowed in their twenty-eighth edition. The 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts went to the Youth and Children´s Orchestras of Venezuela, founded by José Antonio Abreu, the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation was given to the organisations leading the fight against malaria in Africa: Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre (Tanzania), the Malaria Research and Training Centre (Mali), Kintampo Health Research Centre (Ghana) and Manhiça Health Research Centre (Mozambique), the Scientific and Technical Research Award was jointly granted to five scientists, worldwide leaders in the creation of new materials for the benefit of mankind: the physicist, Sumio Iijima; the engineers, Shuji Nakamura and Robert Langer; and the chemists, George M. Whitesides and Tobin Marks. The Award for Communication and Humanities was bestowed on Google, the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Science went to Tzvetan Todorov, the Award for Letters was given to Margaret Atwood and the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports went to Rafael Nadal.

Each of the Prince of Asturias Awards, which date back to 1981, is endowed with 50,000 Euros, a commissioned sculpture donated by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.