What does the extradition of the 14 paramilitary bosses mean?
14 May 2008 12:24 | By: equinoXio
From left to right, Salvatore Mancuso, Edwin Mauricio Gómez, Ramiro Vanoy (aka Cuco Vanoy), and Diego Alberto Ruiz Arroyave (Photo credit: DIJIN / Colombian National Police)
In an unexpected move, President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s administration decided to extradite 14 United Self-defence Forces of Colombia paramilitary bosses to the United States. This happens amidst an ongoing scandal, where more than 30 Congresspeople, most of them from the ruling parties, have been arrested (including Mario Uribe Escobar, president Uribe’s cousin and closest political ally) and other 30 or some are being investigated by the Supreme Court, on alleged links with paramilitary militias, and when former congresswoman Yidis Medina is also being investigated for an alleged bribe, when the presidential re-election bid passed thanks to her and congressman Teodolindo Avendaño’s votes.
It also occurs two days before INTERPOL releases its report on the documents found on the three Toshiba laptops found after Colombian authorities killed FARC commander Luis Édgar Devia, aka Raúl Reyes, on 1 March in a camp located in Ecuadorian soil. The findings, some of them recently published by The Wall Street Journal and Spain’s El País, incriminate Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa with the Colombian Marxist narcoguerrillas. It is expected that the laptops reveal links between FARC guerrillas and prominent Colombian and foreign politicians and personalities, which would be known as the "FARC-politics" scandal.
But what does all this mean? In this special feature, we introduce two articles, written by two well known Colombian bloggers who also happen to be journalists, which, from different perspectives, will provide our readers a complete overview on what is really happening in Colombia right now, so you can make your own opinion.
From the centre-left:
Marsares, editor of equinoXio:
The extradition, air for the "parapoliticians"
From the centre-right:
Jaime Restrepo, editor of Atrabilioso:
The extradited
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Topics
The extradition, air for the “parapoliticians”
The unexpected extradition of 14 important paramilitary bosses to the United States galvanized again the so-called “parapoliticians” and covers with a smoke screen the re-election fraud.
14 May 2008 11:53 | By Marsares | Comments (3)The extradited
President Álvaro Uribe made the decision: send to the United States the paramilitary leadership in order to they respond for drug-trafficking related crimes to the American justice system. How does the outlook change with the presidential measure? There are several issues which may be affected with the extradition of the top United Self-defence Forces of Colombia bosses: the truth, the justice, and the redress (or reparation) to the victims, as well as the parapolitics judicial proceedings.
14 May 2008 11:52 | By Jaime Restrepo | Comments (2)Ignominy: The legacy of López Trujillo
There is something really absurd on asking about cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo’s legacy. If there is something worth granting to this frantic bishop from the Roman Catholic Church, is the toughening of the most conservative, traditional and alienating of its sections. Besides that, he left nothing but a trail of persecution and hatred.
1 May 2008 17:32 | By Carlos Uribe de los Ríos | Comments (0)Topics archive [RSS]
Opinion
Colombian landmark ruling on copyrights: “without profit there is no criminal offence”
The Supreme Court of Colombia, the highest criminal judicial tribunal and Cassation Court (deals with the Cassation procedures also known in other juridical traditions as right of appeal on points of law), determined that in order to establish a criminal violation of copyright, it is necessary to find if the criminal conduct is for profit-making, if it causes effective injury and if the intention is to cause harm on the right holder.
12 May 2008 20:57 | By Johnny Pabón and Carolina Botero | Comments (3)Captain Copyright reappears in Colombia
Recently, the Colombian National Planning Department (DNP) will submit for approval to the National Council for Social and Economic Politics (CONPES) a paper on intellectual property that turns around Canada’s Captain Copyright’s idea of protection and enforcement of copyright, completely focusing on the possibilities of Colombian competition and development in that side of the equation without considering all the other issues that influence the maintenance of a balanced system of creativity and development.
28 March 2008 12:38 | By carobotero | Comments (0)Sports and politics: an unwanted marriage
It should not be this way, but it is like this. Along the history politics’ interference in sports, besides of being inevitable, has brought more negative than positive elements for an activity that, by definition, is peaceful and looks for the harmony among human beings
28 February 2008 21:27 | By Rafa XII | Comments (0)
