Last week, the demobilized paramilitaries’ leadership announced that they were freezing all of their required confessions and other participation in the “Justice and Peace” process. They would continue to withdraw, they said, unless the law was changed to allow their past crimes – other than crimes against humanity – to be characterized as “sedition,” a political crime.
Instead of insisting on the law being enforced, President Uribe shocked many – and engaged in a bitter public dispute with the head of Colombia’s Supreme Court – by taking the paramilitaries’ side, arguing that their crimes should be considered “sedition.”
This is a hard issue to explain to a U.S. audience, because the significance of this legal distinction is not immediately obvious. But everyone we’ve talked to in Colombia insists that it is of utmost importance.
For an idea of why that is, read this very brave column published in yesterday’s El Tiempo by columnist Claudia López, a Colombian journalist who deserves significant credit for breaking the “para-politics” scandal story in 2005 and 2006. Here is an English translation.
July 30, 2007
In exchange for what did you promise them impunity, Mr. President?
The President finally acknowledged the obvious: that he promised the paramilitaries he would treat them as political criminals, with all the impunity that goes along with it. And he continues on a personal crusade to comply with that commitment – even if he has to confront the courts, national and international opinion, to ignore the victims, to change jurisprudence and to obstruct justice.
It is not correct that the only way to guarantee legal benefits and reinsertion for paramilitaries who turn in their weapons is to declare them to be political criminals. There are other alternatives with less impunity, and with more consideration for victims’ rights and for all Colombians’ right not to see a mafioso regime legalized. But the President is not considering these options, because he has to deliver the impunity he offered, and not the reinsertion that is legally possible.
If treated as political criminals, the paramilitaries can be assured that they will not be extradited or judged for narcotrafficking in Colombia. This will allow them to keep trafficking drugs as they see fit, amassing fortunes and corrupting power, which is the weapon that works the best. As they have done so far, they will be able to keep participating in politics, with the advantage that they will no longer need figureheads or placeholders – if they wish, they can be candidates and officeholders directly. And they will legalize the entire political structure that they elected in the Congress, in municipal councils, departmental legislatures, governors’ offices, mayors’ offices and the Presidency. In all the elections of the past ten years, the paramilitaries had winning candidates thanks to the power of money, weapons and their association with – or displacement of – those who appeared to hold political and economic power.
To dismantle paramilitarism and avoid its repetition means dismantling this power structure, and guaranteeing that no government representative ever again sponsors or benefits from criminal groups with the excuse that they help attack the guerrillas. If legal and reinsertion benefits are granted under the legal category of conspiracy to commit crimes, the state and society will have better guarantees that this phenomenenon will be dismantled and will not reemerge. If impunity is given through treatment as political criminals, this structure will not be dismantled, it will be legalized.
The difference from the guerrillas is not in the cruelty of their crimes or the nobility of their motivations, but in the origin of their criminal activity, their penetration of public power and the alternatives for their reinsertion. The guerrillas are bandits, on the margins of – and against – the state. The paramilitaries are the children of power: armed and trained, in the majority of cases, by members of the security forces, protected by the politicians who represented the state, and illegally financed by economic powers who functioned legally. To substitute for violence and re-establish democracy, the guerrillas must be brought into the exercise of political power without the use of arms. The paramilitaries, on the contrary, must be ejected from the political power that they appropriated illegally, with the consent of state representatives, and that they continue to exercise as though it were legal. The difference is that the paramilitaries did take power, while the guerrillas barely control – ever more marginally – a few territories.
To comply with what was agreed, the President and many others defend their position by saying that it is just as political to attack the state as it is to defend it. There is no doubt that the guerrillas attack citizens and the state. But to accept that the paramilitaries’ criminal actions were in defense of the state is to twist the most basic logic to its foundations. Since when does defending the state mean massacring and chopping up Colombians, assassinating political opponents, union leaders, judges and investigators, displacing thousands of families, stealing money from the public treasury and land from the peasantry, creating a narcotrafficking, mafiosa structure, and imposing their candidates through force in order to take political power? Since when is such criminal behavior considered defending the state? Perhaps it has been that way ever since it was negotiated: in exchange for arms and silence, the impunity that is now being defended so vehemently.
Claudia López
August 1st, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Claudia Lopez’s argument makes perfect sense. Given the history of journalists courageously speaking their minds, I hope it doesn’t cause her any problems.
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:11 am
The arguments make sense, I agree. What I don’t understand is why Uribe is doing this. He is not stupid – he must be aware of, and understand Lopez’s arguments. Does he not care if the political corruption continues? Does he not care about the future of Colombia? Is he just a puppet of the AUC? Is he evil? Is he just trying to protect himself and his friends?
Or does he disagree with this analysis?
He doesn’t seem evil to me – or to most Colombians it seems because he apparently has support. Uribe seems to have good intentions and he seems honest. Is this an act? Or does he have a strategy different from the one suggested above? It is certainly arguable that the paras started as a political group but it does not seem to apply to the organization now – so why make that tortured argument, so to speak?
What is his strategy?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
This is a very intelligent analysis about the dangers of legitimizing paramilitary activity as political. However, one question comes to mind. López says that paramilitaries “must be ejected from the political power that they appropriated illegally.” Since the paramilitaries have, since their emergence, violently defended real interests in security and a certain social order, what is to prevent these interests from rising in arms again? I suppose that these interests feel better defended due to Uribe’s development of the armed forces. Yet if Uribe does cede to national and international outcry and criminalizes paramilitarism (which he should), and if a less hardline president comes to power after Uribe’s term is finally over (which he might), the sense of loss of power by those interested in a certain kind of security could be overwhelming. Thus this constituency must be kept in dialogue.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:17 am
Randy, it does cause her a lot of problems. The more extreme Uribista right-wing (even centre-right) bloggers and the commentators at eltiempo.com slam her as a guerrilla woman. In Colombia journalist have been killed because of “softer” columns and articles, either by FARC or AUC.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Some good points, others not so much….though I unfortunately do not have the time to discuss them at length right now, one thing did jump out at me….
“If treated as political criminals, the paramilitaries can be assured that they will not be extradited or judged for narcotrafficking in Colombia.”
She is quite wrong about this, legally speaking, as of now. See the cases of FARC guerrillas. That about sums it up.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I must disagree with you jcg about the narcotrafficking point. Why? Well, the cases of the para leaders and the FARC are quite different. If the paras are judged as political criminals, it will be under the Justice and Peace Law, which, as we know, would keep the paras from being extradited. The FARC cases, Sonia and Simon Trinidad, were caught. They did not enter the Justice and Peace process. Thus they were extradited. Extradition done. Judged for narcotrafficking in Colombia…it’s possible, but unlikely. All they have to do is say I shipped this much cocaine to the States, and killed this many people, and most likely (exception Jorge 40), 8 years in jail max. Will they be judged? Not really. They’ll just say whatever, and take their 8 years tops. So I think she is right. Though if it were not for the Justice and Peace Law, she would be wrong.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am
problem in colombia is corruption: see this article and if someone can get the list 70% of the problems would be resolved;
http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/el-robin-hood-que-lucha-contra-la-evasion-fiscal-en-europa_6797057-1
Este es distinto. No les robó a los ricos para repartir el botÃn entre los pobres. Se robó en Suiza una base de datos de clientes que tienen abultadas y sospechosas cuentas en prestigioso banco.
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Y entre los 130.000 nombres que componen la lista no sólo aparecen actores y polÃticos franceses, chinos e italianos, sino miles de colombianos, entre ellos varios funcionarios públicos.
Según el periódico francés Le Parisien, que reveló el escándalo esta semana, la filial suiza del banco británico HSBC admitió que uno de sus antiguos empleados se robó una base con los datos fiscales de miles de clientes franceses para dársela luego a investigadores galos de la lucha contra el fraude.
Y no era cualquier empleado pues, de acuerdo con el diario, se trata de un directivo informático del HSBC Private Bank de Ginebra, un franco-italiano de 38 años que consiguió la lista de clientes entre finales del 2006 y comienzos del 2007 y huyó con ella a Francia, donde actualmente vive bajo protección judicial en la región de Niza.
“El listado de cuentas sospechosas que robó un empleado de la sede del banco HSBC en Ginebra tiene unos 130.000 nombres de todo el mundo”, anunció ayer el fiscal de Niza que investiga este caso de presunto lavado de dinero, Eric de Montgolfier.
“No se trata de un simple listado de nombres sino de un complejo sistema con claves secretas en el que hay miles de franceses, pero también nacionales de otros muchos paÃses, especialmente de Colombia e Italia”, agregó el fiscal.
El protagonista de esta historia se hace llamar Hervé, para preservar su anonimato por razones de seguridad y, según trascendió este domingo, habrÃa logrado acceder a ese listado con la ayuda de un cómplice.
Los responsables del banco lo descubrieron cuando, al parecer, intentó vender la información en LÃbano e inmediatamente alertaron a las autoridades de Francia.
Sin embargo, el abogado de Hervé aseguró a Le Parisien que su cliente nunca intentó vender esos datos, porque “no es un ladrón”, sino una especie de ‘Robin Hood’ que lucha contra el crimen organizado.
“El HSBC Private Bank de Suiza confirma que un ex empleado que trabajaba para los servicios informáticos robó datos entre finales del 2006 y principios del 2007″, subrayó la entidad en un comunicado.
El banco presentó una demanda ante las autoridades helvéticas, presionadas por ParÃs sobre el secreto bancario, y reclamó la lista que Francia se niega a darle.
REDACCIÓN INTERNACIONAL
Con AFP y Efe