Let’s be clear here: “Simón Trinidad,†the most senior FARC member ever to
be in Colombian government custody, is going to be extradited to the United
States by the end of the year.
On November 24, Colombia’s Supreme Court gave the green light to the extraditions,
on drug-trafficking charges, of Trinidad (real name: Ricardo Palmera) and paramilitary
leader Salvatore Mancuso. The rulings force President Uribe to decide promptly
whether to hand them over to U.S. authorities. Uribe has now made decisions
in both cases, determining that each must meet specific conditions in order
to avoid extradition.
Mancuso’s conditions merely require the top paramilitary figure to keep doing
what he has already said he would do: keep taking part in peace negotiations
and “abandon illegal activities.†Of course, what Mancuso has said he would
do may not be what he actually will do. If the AUC leader continues participating
in “illegal activities,†let’s hope the Colombian government doesn’t turn a
blind eye.
The conditions facing the guerrilla leader’s extradition are much tougher:
if Trinidad’s extradition is to be avoided, President Uribe has declared, by
December 30 the FARC must free all sixty-three of the hostages it has held,
in some cases since the late 1990s. The
target="_blank">list of prominent kidnapped people – whom the guerrillas insist
on exchanging for FARC prisoners in Colombian jails – includes military officers,
politicians (including former senator and presidential candidate
and three
target="_blank">U.S. citizens captured while working for a Defense Department
contractor.
There is about a zero likelihood that the FARC will agree to Uribe’s demand.
The guerrillas view their hostages as an enormous bargaining chip, and have
sought to hold talks in a temporarily demilitarized zone (the latest demand
is the municipalities of Florida and Pradera southeast of Cali) to discuss a
deal to secure their release. Though a prominent guerrilla leader, Trinidad
was neither a member of the FARC’s top
nor its 18-member high command (Estado Mayor Central); the guerrilla
leadership is unlikely, then, to give in to what it regards as blackmail, freeing
hostages it has held for years merely to secure Trinidad’s release.
So Trinidad will be on U.S. soil sometime around New Year’s Day. If that happens,
what comes next?
Gustavo Petro, a Colombian congressman and former M-19 guerrilla, put it well:
President Uribe’s demand “is like attaching a bomb to each hostage.†The FARC
has already shown its willingness to kill its hostages in cold blood. In May
2003, FARC captors killed the governor of Antioquia department, his peace advisor
(a former defense minister) and several others during a botched army rescue
attempt.
What is to stop the guerrillas from responding with equal brutality to Trinidad’s
extradition, killing one or more hostages? In their calculations, doing so would
set a precedent making it very costly for the government to agree to extradite
future FARC prisoners. The hostages’ family members are right to be very worried.
The blackmail runs both ways.
President Uribe’s ultimatum not only endangers the FARC hostages, it makes
it even less likely that dialogue can be re-established anytime soon. Angelino
Garzón, the governor of Valle del Cauca department, which includes the area
the FARC hoped to demilitarize to hold talks (a proposal Garzón supported),
laments this situation. “Extradition and a humanitarian negotiation are different
dynamics. The government should carry out greater efforts to find spaces for
agreement, achieve the hostages’ liberation and stimulate opportunities for
peace, such as what is being done with the paramilitaries.â€
The government is doing the opposite, issuing ultimatums that play to popular
opinion. Uribe’s demand “isn’t going to have any positive effect on an eventual
hostage liberation,†Camilo Gómez, the Colombian government’s chief peace negotiator
between 2000 and 2002, told El Tiempo. “The President is playing politics
instead of seeking the hostages’ freedom.â€
December 21st, 2004 at 5:26 am
As the UN and every legitimate human rights organization have stated, the FARC have the obligation to unconditionally release all of their hostages.
You can criticize Uribe for a lot of things, but the conditions and safety of the hostages fall to the FARC alone. If the FARC kill hostages, the blood is on their hands.
If you blame Uribe or anyone else, you’re simply playing into the FARC’s media game.
December 21st, 2004 at 9:55 am
Of course the FARC would have blood on their hands. And we would go on condemning them and calling for the unconditional release of remaining hostages. But a hostage (or hostages) would also be dead, probably preventably.
This isn’t Entebbe or the Japanese embassy in Lima. The FARC is hiding its hostages in remote locations behind several rings of security. Even a large-scale SAR operation in mid-2003 couldn’t locate the 3 U.S. contractor-hostages. The odds are against a hard-line, all-or-nothing approach. And they’re certainly against gambits like playing “chicken” with Simón Trinidad’s extradition.
Besides, who is playing a “media game” right now? If the FARC weren’t so incredibly inept at any strategies that don’t involve violence, Colombia’s media would have long been saturated with messages from, and videos of, the hostages, which would have built up pressure for a resolution of the crisis long before now. It is Colombia’s sitting president who is playing the media game at the moment, playing to the gallery with unilateral prison releases and extradition ultimatums. I fear this won’t end well.
December 22nd, 2004 at 2:22 pm
A rather controversial move…I’ll say that I do disagree with Uribe’s action, which is indeed quite a de facto ultimatum, but then again…could he have realistically denied Trinidad’s extradition outright? At most, I’d imagine that he could have delayed it in a manner similar to Mancuso’s, but not much else. Eventually, Trinidad would most likely have ended up in the USA, since the moves towards a future humanitarian prisioner exchange are progressing at a very slow and even counterproductive pace.