Colombia extradites 14 paramilitary leaders to the United States

On Tuesday early morning, the Colombian government sent to the United States 14 demobilized United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) leaders, who were jailed in three prisons in Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Itagüí (Antioquia department, northwest), on extradition. President Álvaro Uribe administration, facing an ongoing scandal for alleged links between lawmakers (some 30 of them already in jail, including Uribe’s cousin) and top politicians who supported him with the paramilitary militias, made the decision on the grounds of them "still committing crimes and reorganizing criminal structures", as Interior Minister Carlos Holguín Sardi told local media on Tuesday morning.

The plane with the 14 militia bosses on board departed from CATAM military airport in Bogotá at 06:45 (11:45 UTC) to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They will face drug-trafficking charges. The AUC, a federation of militias who fought the left-wing guerrillas, such as FARC and ELN, and considered a terrorist organization by the U. S. government, started a demobilization process with the Colombian government in 2003. After the approval of the so-called Justice and Peace Law in 2005 (Ley 975 de 2005), the militia bosses were expected to confess their crimes in order to get low sentences. and they also committed to "repair" their victims. During the hearings, the paramilitary leaders have confessed outrageous crimes, as massacres, child beheadings, and vivisections. They also have incriminated politicians and companies which benefited from their power in some rural regions of the country, including American companies such as Chiquita Brands, which was fined after recognizing it had paid the AUC.

Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, aka Jorge 40, was the only paramilitary chief who expressed rage on the government’s decision. According to Caracol Radio, he yelled the policemen who took him in custody, "you betrayed us, motherf*****s!" The other warlords promptly signed their extradition documents.

As some of the paramilitary bosses’ lawyers expressed their outrage to the media, like Germán Navarrete, lawyer of Ramiro Vanoy, who told the media that "we thought [...] that the peace process, in its judgement stage, would have at least some respect for the due process", Iván Cepeda, from the Movement of Victims of State Crimes, said that "with what is being perpetrated this morning, this would leave without any grounds most of the Justice and Peace processes". He added that "this has as the [collateral] effect of hampering the investigations on the so-called parapolitics scandal. I have to say that most of these bosses were willing to declare and give information to the Supreme Court’s Criminal branch."

Colombia’s Supreme Court had already approved the extradition of the militia bosses, but they were "freezed" when AUC started the demobilization process.

At noon, President Álvaro Uribe said in a televised speech that "some people were extradited, either because they had returned to crime after having submitted to the Law of Justice and Peace or because they had not cooperated with the justice system as they should; and all of them because they had failed to due their duty in making reparations to the victims, by concealing their assets or delaying their surrender." He added, "[t]he Government has asked, and the United States has accepted, that the State and People of Colombia may send representatives to the trials to be conducted in the United States, in order to continue the quest for the truth – the truth about the crimes investigated, most of them committed before this administration came into office."

Uribe said that the peace process goes on: "[w]e require the thousands of demobilized to comply with the Law of Justice and Peace. Colombia has been generous to them, but the Government cannot tolerate recidivism, failure to observe the provisions of the law, lack of true and effective collaboration with the justice system or lack of commitment in making reparations for the victims." And ended blaming the guerrillas for the existence of the paramilitary phenomenon: "[r]emember that the guerrillas were the masters, the ones who taught the paramilitaries to penetrate democratic institutions and kill journalists, union leaders and any number of ordinary people, leaving millions of families subsumed in grief and misery. Remember that the paramilitaries are the offspring of the violence of the guerrillas and the neglect of the State."

The paramilitary leaders arrived to OpaLoka airport in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. They will be sent to several prisons in Miami, Tampa, Houston, New York, and Washington D. C.

[Updated 21:14 and 21:30 COT]

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