Colombia

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Colombia: Uribe, Extradition, and the Fight for Justice

Extradition of Colombian paramilitary defendants to the US could ironically endanger peace process
Speculation on the motivations behind Uribe’s undermining his own Ley de Justicia y Paz
Recommendations for the defense of Colombian victims of injustice

Controversial Extradition

On Tuesday, May 13, President Uribe approved the extradition of 14 Colombians to the United States who face drug trafficking charges. While the Uribe administration has overseen the transfer of more defendants to the US than any other president in Colombia’s history, the most recent series of handovers is perhaps the most controversial. Among the group are some of the highest ranking leaders of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), a brutal rightist paramilitary force which has been a principal actor in the country’s long running civil conflict as well as the perpetrator of some of the war’s major massacres and other human rights abuses. According to Uribe, the extradition of the AUC senior leaders was necessary because of the repeated failure to cooperate with Colombian investigators in sharing information about their crimes and a lack of willingness to surrender their illegally attained assets. Uribe also cited the continued participation of the former paramilitary leaders in illegal activities, such as narcotrafficking, even after they submitted to being detained.

Despite these justifications, many observers question Uribe’s decision to forego the judicial mechanisms previously established by the passage of Law 925, also known as La Ley de Justicia y Paz. A crucial part of the demobilization process which has resulted in the reintegration of thousands of former combatants into civil society, the law was intended to encourage the country’s reconciliation process. It mandates that participants in Colombia’s civil conflict may confess their crimes and make only token reparations to victims or their families in exchange for a maximum sentence of 8 years. If the accused does not confess or make reparations, they are to be turned over to the Colombian judicial system to be tried, with the important distinction that any convictions made would lack maximum sentencing limits. Like Uribe, the United States seems very much in favor of the reversal of direction of a law that both enthusiastically supported upon its passage in 2005.

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Brazil Spearheads UNASUR Defense Council, but in a Surprise move, Colombia Withdraws

• Implications for Brazil
• The Venezuela-Colombia Rift
• Regional Autonomy
• The Rebirth of the Fourth Fleet and with it the Ghost of Gunboat Diplomacy
• The new Pattern of United States-South American Relations

Member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) signed a pact on Friday, May 23 in Brasília to establish judicial and political components for the emerging, limited union. On the docket was a plan to create a military coordinating component of UNASUR, the Conselho Sul-Americano de Defesa (CSD). However, the CSD was destined to be founded without the important exception of Colombia, which recently confused its neighbors by revoking its intention to join. Brazil, in collaboration with Venezuela, spearheaded the creation of the defense portion of the pact, which will be increasingly NATO-like in structure.

Successfully founding the CSD, which had been scheduled to include Colombia, would have represented an enormous victory for what has been called President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s “pragmatic left” leadership. It was no secret that Brasília hoped to use the CSD to strengthen regional ties across highly sensitive boundaries, with Colombia on the right, Venezuela on the left, and Brazil hoping to act as the mediating middle. However, the withdrawal of Bogotá, with one of the region’s most advanced militaries, has significantly weakened the pact from its onset. Brazilian defense minister, Nelson Jobim, described the basic tenets of the CSD as an integrated alliance without an operating field capability. CSD forces would cooperate, for example, in contributing to UN and other humanitarian missions if necessary. The alliance will also be expected to coordinate military technology and resources.

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Calls for Transparency and Increased Patriotism: Fallout from Colombia-Ecuador Border Crisis Continues to Affect Ecuador’s Military

• Tension builds between the military and President Rafael Correa amidst accusations of wrongdoing
• More developments follow from the Colombia-Ecuador Border Crisis as Defense Minister Wéllington Sandoval is forced to resign
• Correa calls for high level commission to promote transparency

Ecuador’s Poetic Defense Minister

Javier Ponce Cevallos, sworn in on April 9th as Ecuador’s new minister of defense, may be the hemisphere’s most literary belle–letrist high official. Ponce, a poet, essayist and novelist, will leave his position as personal secretary to President Correa to assume a senior position in El Palacio de la Exposición. Never having served in the military (a result of the temporary suspension of the application of conscription laws by military strongman Castro Jijón in the early 1970s), Ponce takes office despite publicly-aired misgivings expressed by Hector Camacho, chief of the country’s Joint Command, and Guillermo Vásconez, Commander of the Army.

Tensions between President Correa and top officials of Ecuador’s armed forces grew in the wake of the March 1, 2008 Ecuadorian-Colombian border crisis. An Ecuadorian civilian, Franklin Aisilla, an Ecuadorian national was killed in Colombia’s aerial bombing near the border hamlet of Angostura on that day. Correa learned of Aisilla’s death and his apparent links to Las Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerrilla group, in an article published in a local news source some days afterward.

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Relations Soured Once More: Colombia’s Search for Security Renders the Region Insecure, as Ecuador and Venezuela Fume

Conflict Spills Over

The episodically fiery relations between Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador once again flamed as a result of Bogotá ordering its forces to covertly penetrate Ecuadorian territory in an effort to destroy a unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A small group of its members, led by second-ranking officer Raúl Reyes, had encamped one mile from the Colombian border. Bogotá’s actions exacerbated already long-standing tensions with its immediate South American neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even though its resort to arms angered almost all of its South American peers as well as violated the territorial sovereignty of Ecuador, the incursion could be seen as a tactical victory for Bogotá. However, the coup came at the expense of the country’s standing in the rest of the hemisphere. Colombia’s forces not only managed to kill FARC leader Raúl Reyes, but its military units were also able to recover four laptop computers allegedly containing vital information regarding the inner workings of FARC, their political agenda, and links between Venezuelan and Ecuadorian authorities and the guerrilla organization.

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