[R-G] The Para-Uribe Regime, the Extraditions, and Justice in Colombia

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.en-camino.org/para-uribismo-and-icc

The Para-Uribe Regime, the Extraditions, and Justice in Colombia

Aug 22/08

by Justin Podur, Dawn Paley, and Manuel Rozental

A New York Times article by Simon Romero on August 15 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/world/americas/16colombia.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin 
 > suggested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor  
Luis Moreno Ocampo was going to investigate the FARC in Colombia, and  
its connections to other countries. In the 12-paragraph article, one  
paragraph (the 10th) noted that the ICC would also look at  
paramilitarism:

“In relation to the paramilitaries, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said he was  
concerned that there had been few convictions of paramilitary  
warlords, despite the extradition of more than a dozen to the United  
States and a scandal over paramilitary ties among senior members of  
Colombia’s political establishment.”

The NYT article is deceptive. The ICC's main concern was with  
paramilitarism, not the FARC, whose crimes are dwarfed by those of the  
paramilitaries. The Supreme Court of Colombia have been seeking  
convictions of the politicians involved in the 'scandal over  
paramilitary ties', not just the paramilitaries themselves. These  
cases are going to be harmed by the extraditions of the main  
witnesses, the mentioned dozen paramilitary leaders. The  
paramilitaries (and politicians) are guilty of major massacres, war  
crimes, and crimes against humanity, but they will be tried in the US  
exclusively on drug charges. Above all, the motive for the crimes is  
lost in the article. The paramilitarism, and for that matter the drug  
trafficking to help finance it, was done to destroy social opposition  
and displace people from territory, to facilitate the plunder of the  
country through violence.

Some background is necessary. Colombia's civil war has been running,  
by some counts, for sixty years, since change through the political  
system was closed when Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated in 1948.  
For the first few decades the instrument of destruction of social  
movements and indigenous and afro-colombian peoples was the national  
army and police, supplemented by private armies affiliated with  
political parties. Starting in the 1960s, the United States became  
heavily involved in sponsoring counterinsurgency warfare. The  
paramilitarism currently seen in Colombia, in which private armies act  
as auxiliaries to the military, conduct narcotrafficking, perform  
'social cleansing', and contract with landowners, multinationals, and  
politicians to commit murder and massacre, has been around since at  
least the 1980s, when the Castano brothers helped found Muerte a los  
Secuestradores (MAS), which then became Autodefensas Unidas de  
Colombia (AUC).

Colombia's current President Alvaro Uribe Velez’ political history is  
intimately tied with paramilitarism. He was mayor of the then drug- 
trafficker controlled Medellin in 1982, and when he became governor of  
Antioquia in 1995-1997, he supported the legalized paramilitarism of  
groups called CONVIVIR. Elected president in 2002 he changed the  
constitution so he could be re-elected in 2006, and reams of evidence  
have accumulated of links between politicians in his party and the  
paramilitary death squads. During Uribe’s nearly three decades in  
politics, paramilitaries have ravaged the country, killing several  
thousand Colombians every single year, carrying out spectacular public  
atrocities like playing soccer with victims' heads and creating mass  
graves.

As President, Uribe's strategy was to attack the FARC continuously,  
politically and militarily, to capitalize on the political errors of  
the guerrillas and suggest a military solution to the conflict with  
them. In tandem, he also initiated a full-blown 'peace process' with  
the paramilitaries. The idea of a peace process between the government  
and the paramilitaries, which were basically the clients of the state  
and multinationals, performing the killings and terrorism these  
institutions did not want to be openly associated with, was always  
preposterous, a mechanism for legalizing paramiltarism. But the  
process went forward over a number of years. Many paramilitaries who  
came forward and surrendered their arms were allowed impunity for  
their crimes and in some cases, were also allowed to keep the  
territories of the peasants they had driven from the land by terror.  
Others were incorporated into Uribe's 'democratic security' apparatus  
as paid informants. Still others came forward to confess to lesser  
crimes than they had actually committed.

The peace process and the 'demobilization' of paramilitaries did not  
end paramilitarism. Assassinations and death threats proceed as normal  
despite the supposed demobilization. The new generation of  
paramilitaries on August 11/08 made genocidal threats against the  
indigenous of Cauca, saying the region had been surrounded by their  
agents and that “there will be a significant number of you murdered  
and disappeared. We know that your population will not go above 1  
million people in Colombia. We want Popayan, Bogota, and Cali free of  
Indians...” The current indigenous population of Colombia is about 1.4  
million.

The number of paramilitary atrocities has decreased somewhat since the  
peace process, but the Colombian army and police have taken up the  
slack. An LA Times report on August 20/08 by Chris Kraul quoted  
figures from the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ) that the  
military killed 329 people in 2007 compared to 223 in 2006. The  
murders that would have been committed by the paramilitaries are now  
being committed directly by the greatly-expanded military forces.

One major political risk in the paramilitary peace process was that,  
while the killings could continue, for the process to succeed even as  
theatre at least some people would have to be punished for the  
horrendous crimes. But no one wanted to be the scapegoat, and  
paramilitarism was deeply embedded – in the military, in local  
politics, in Congress, and in relationships with the multinationals on  
the ground. One general, Jaime Uscategui, on trial for a paramilitary  
massacre of civilians at Mapiripan in 1997, suggested publicly that if  
he went down for it, he would bring many others down with him and had  
the evidence to do so (he was acquitted).

With both founding Castano brothers (Fidel and Carlos) probably dead,  
the AUC had been under the control of a third Castano, Vicente, and  
Salvatore Mancuso, a commander with close links to Italian mafias. AUC  
leaders had a history of making comments embarrassing to the Colombian  
administration. According to the paramilitary ideology, they were  
performing a service, exterminating leftists, unionists, indigenous  
people and peasant leaders, all of whom they deemed enemies of  
Colombia, and were unashamed of it. Carlos Castano admitted that 70%  
of their revenues came from drug trafficking. In 2002, Mancuso praised  
the election of Uribe and said that 35% of Colombia's congress were  
friendly to the paramilitaries.

At the end of 2006, these admissions spiralled out of the control of  
Uribe's administration. Mancuso turned himself in. At around the same  
time, a document called the “Pact of Ralito”, signed by paramilitaries  
and politicians in 2001, was exposed. A paramilitary leader, Rodrigo  
Tovar Pupo (codename “Jorge 40”), had his laptop confiscated. Jorge  
40's computer contained many other documents that the Colombian  
Supreme Court used as the basis for an investigation into the links  
between elected politicians, most of whom were in Uribe's camp, and  
the paramilitaries. Through 2007, between the Jorge 40 laptop  
documents and the testimony of Mancuso and others, some very  
uncomfortable realities were being exposed before the Supreme Court  
and the country. The scandal was called 'para-politica', though  
opposition Senator Jorge Robledo called it 'para-Uribismo', because  
most of the dozens of politicians involved were in Uribe's camp.

Indeed, it is remarkable how much evidence of paramilitary and  
narcotrafficking involvement has emerged about Uribe himself. In April  
2007 opposition Senator Gustavo Petro presented photos of Uribe's  
brother Santiago with a drug dealer (Fabio Ochoa) in 1985 and  
suggested Uribe's support for the CONVIVIR paramilitaries in Antioquia  
helped facilitate massacres in that department in the 1990s. A former  
lover of notorious drug dealer Pablo Escobar (Virginia Vallejo) said  
in her book that Escobar and Uribe had been great friends in the  
1980s. More seriously, so too did the US Defense Intelligence Agency  
in 1991, as a document published by the US National Security Archive <http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm 
 > shows: Uribe was said to be “a close personal friend of Pablo  
Escobar”, “dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel”, and  
was against extradition – something the narcotraffickers had always  
feared. In April 2008, Uribe's cousin Mario was arrested as part of  
the para-Uribismo scandal, and another paramilitary fighter accused  
Uribe himself of helping plan a massacre in 1997.

Uribe met these varied accusations with a single response: attacking  
the source. Thus in Uribe's accusations, Gustavo Petro and his party,  
the Polo Democratico, were guerrilla supporters. The photograph with  
an Uribe and an Ochoa existed because both families were famous  
ranchers and attended common horse breeding competitions. Virginia  
Vallejo couldn't produce any photos of him with Escobar, and was only  
the vehicle of journalist Gonzalo Guillen, who Uribe attacked publicly  
(and who then was forced to flee the country due to death threats from  
paramiltiaries). He had supported the legalized CONVIVIR  
paramiltiaries as governor, but when he learned of their atrocities he  
tried to demobilize them. And the Supreme Court was partisan,  
political, and should be reformed. In recent weeks Uribe has suggested  
a reform to put the Supreme Court under the jurisdiction of the  
executive, to which we will return.

The “para-Uribismo” evidence included specific agreements between  
politicians and paramilitaries on planning specific massacres,  
arrangements on how to cover up and erase records of crimes in  
official databases, and more.

Among the most uncomfortable of the revelations came from Mancuso  
himself. In March 2007, the American fruit company Chiquita admitted  
before a US court to paying over a million dollars to the  
paramilitaries, who massacred banana workers in Uraba. Chiquita made a  
plea to pay a $25 million fine (in the US) as punishment. A separate  
case against Chiquita on behalf of the victims of the massacres,  
represented by Jim Reider, is currently being pursued in a New York  
Court. Chiquita argued the payments were capitulation to murderous  
extortion, and that they paid in order to protect their workers from  
the paramilitaries.

A year later, Chiquita's relationship with the paramilitaries was  
brought to a wider American audience in a 60 Minutes program aired May  
11, 2008. The interviewer, Steve Kroft, spoke to Mancuso:

   * * *
   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/08/60minutes/main4080920_page3.shtml

   /60 Minutes did find one person who was willing to name names inside
   a maximum security prison outside Medellin: Salvatore Mancuso was
   once the leader of the paramilitaries./

   "Chiquita says the reason they paid the money was because your
   people would kill them if they didn't. Is that true?" Kroft asks.

   "No it is not true," Mancuso says. "They paid taxes because we were
   like a state in the area, and because we were providing them with
   protection which enabled them to continue making investments and a
   financial profit."

   "What would have happened to Chiquita and its employees if they had
   not paid you?" Kroft asks.

   "The truth is, we never thought about what would happen because they
   did so willingly," Mancuso says.

   Asked if the company had a choice, Mancuso says, "Yes, they had a
   choice. They could go to the local police or army for protection
   from the guerillas, but the army and police at that time were barely
   able to protect themselves."

   Mancuso helped negotiate a deal with the Colombian government that
   allowed more than 30,000 paramilitaries to give up their arms and
   demobilize in return for reduced prison sentences. As part of the
   deal, the paramilitaries must truthfully confess to all crimes, or
   face much harsher penalties.

   (CBS) "Dole and Del Monte say they never paid you any money," Kroft
   tells Mancuso.

   "Chiquita has been honest by acknowledging the reality of the
   conflict and the payments that it made; the others also made
   payments, not only international companies, but also the national
   companies in the region," Mancuso says.

   "So you're saying Dole and Del Monte are lying?" Kroft asks.

   "I'm saying they all paid," Mancuso says.

   Mancuso has been indicted in the U.S. for smuggling 17 tons of
   cocaine into the country. He says he's more than willing to tell U.S
   prosecutors anything they want to know.

   "Has anyone come down here from the United States to talk to you
   about Dole, or to talk to you about Del Monte or any other
   companies?" Kroft asks.

   "No one has come from the Department of Justice of the United States
   to talk to us," Mancuso says. "I am taking the opportunity to invite
   the Department of State and the Department of Justice, so that they
   can come and so I can tell them all that they want to know from us."

   "And you would name names?" Kroft asks.

   "Certainly, I would do so," Mancuso says.

   * * *

About 24 hours after the program aired, on May 13, 2008, Uribe had  
Mancuso extradited to the United States for drug trafficking, along  
with a dozen other paramilitary leaders.

The extraditions continue, disrupting the spiral of revelations and  
given Uribe a chance to try to return to the initiative. Uribe's  
attack is three-pronged. First, attack the evidence by deporting the  
paramilitary leaders who can testify to the links between paramilitary  
massacre and displacement with Colombian politicians and, more  
importantly, with multinational and US corporations. Second, attack  
the Supreme Court institutionally and try to bring it under political  
control. Also use the legal offices that are under the President's  
influence to get people close to the President released: Mario Uribe,  
the President's cousin, and William Montes, another accused “para- 
politician”, were released by Colombia's prosecutors in the past few  
days. Third, use the popularity gained from successful operations  
against FARC to attack anyone pointing to the evidence of para- 
Uribismo as guerrillas.

These popularity-swelling operations are tarred by their own  
illegality: Uribe admitted that the Colombian government rescued FARC  
hostage Ingrid Betancourt and the other captured soldiers and police  
by impersonating an international humanitarian organization and using  
the Red Cross logo, something that is also illegal under international  
law (AFP, July 17/08, “Uribe Admits Red Cross Emblem Used in Hostage  
Rescue”).

But yet another challenge to Uribe and to “para-Uribismo” has come  
from an unexpected direction: the International Criminal Court (ICC).  
Its prosecutor, Argentine attorney Luis Moreno Ocampo, began  
proceedings against a sitting head of state last month when he sought  
a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's President Omar Bashir for war  
crimes in Darfur. Observers of the Darfur conflict argued that doing  
so was a mistake, that it mixed false accusations with legitimate ones  
and would damage the prospects for peace in Darfur (see for example  
Alex de Waal's comment <http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/2008/07/29/moreno-ocampos-coup-de-theatre/ 
 >).

Others have argued that the ICC's actions in Rwanda and Yugoslavia  
were also politicized: US officials would never go on trial for their  
crimes, nor in most cases would their clients – so what justice was  
the ICC dispensing? And yet, when Uribe's office received the ICC's  
letter about the paramilitary extraditions, the Colombian president  
had to be aware that he was receiving a letter from someone who had  
issued a warrant for the arrest of a sitting president for crimes  
committed in the name of counterinsurgency and carried out by proxy  
forces.

Moreno's letter <http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/ 
2008/08/91505.php>, addressed to the Colombian Ambassador at the  
Hague, was diplomatically worded. Its key paragraph:

“How will the prosecution of those primarily responsible for crimes  
that are under the jurisdiction of the ICC (translator's note – these  
are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression),  
including political leaders and members of Congress presumably linked  
to the demobilized paramilitaries, be guaranteed? In particular, I  
would like to know if the investigations into crimes punishable under  
the Rome Statute <http://www.icc-cpi.int/library/officialjournal/Rome_Statute_120704-EN.pdf 
 > will continue and if the extradition of the paramilitary leaders  
presents an obstacle to the effective investigation of the  
aforementioned politicians. I should clarify that as of today there is  
no decision on opening an investigation. The situation remains under  
the analysis of my office.”

Colombia is a signatory to the Rome Statute, but it exempted itself  
for 7 years from the war crimes article of the statute in 2002 <http://www.cesarsalgado.net/200209/020902b.htm 
 >, the year Uribe came to power. Should the ICC open an  
investigation, the legality of this exemption will no doubt be  
considered.

Colombia is not Sudan: Colombia is a devoted US ally and Sudan, an  
official enemy. Colombia is a sought-after free trade partner of  
Canada and the US and Sudan, the subject of sanctions. For the ICC to  
intervene in Colombia to ensure that the evidence against the regime,  
its links to crimes against humanity, and the relationship between  
these crimes and the enrichment of multinational corporations is  
allowed to emerge would be a different direction for the court, one  
that could damage support for Colombia's regime in the US and Canada.  
Perhaps the threat of an ICC investigation could help undermine  
Uribe's efforts to abuse Colombia's Supreme Court and force Canada and  
the US to stop their armed plunder of that country.

Justin Podur and Manuel Rozental are activists with Pueblos en Camino (www.en-camino.org 
). Dawn Paley is a contributing editor of The Dominion (www.dominionpaper.ca 
)

*Related*:

Manuel Rozental, Que justicia exige la Corte, ALAI: http://www.alainet.org/active/25831

Dawn Paley, ICC investigates extraditions, Dominion Weblog: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/dawn/1999

For basic information: see wikipedia on Alvaro Uribe Velez <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Uribe 
 >, Para-political scandal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Para-political_scandal 
 >, and Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodefensas_Unidas_de_Colombia 
 >.