Extradition: Shipping Out the Truth
Hebert Veloza (aka H.H.), one of the most infamous paramilitary leaders and a key witness in at least three massacres in the San José Peace Community, is currently waiting to be extradited to the United States. He is the next on the list of paramilitary leaders that will have to face charges – and probably serve sentences - in the United States for drug trafficking, production, and/or money laundering.
Nonetheless, with the extradition of these paramilitary leaders, their commitment to Colombian society is on hold, as they will leave unfinished business that was introduced through the Justice and Peace Law of 2005, the law regulating the paramilitaries’ demobilization. Their extradition interrupts the public declarations that these paramilitary leaders are required to fulfill through confessions of all the crimes and violations against humanity that they are responsible for and simultaneously serve prison sentences. In an interview with the daily El Espectador regarding the Justice and Peace Process and his much discussed extradition, H.H declared that he has only shared “50% of the truth” about the crimes that terrorized several regions in the country. When asked, “And the other 50% of the truth will leave for the United States?” his response was, “Well, as soon as I am extradited, yes.”
On May 14, the US Department of Justice and the Colombian government successfully completed the extradition of 14 top paramilitary chiefs, fifteen with “Salvatore Mancuso,” who was extradited weeks before them. It is important to understand who are these individuals: they are key players in the Colombian conflict. The men constitute almost the whole leadership of the AUC, which was the paramilitaries’ command structure, responsible for terrorizing an entire country, and actively promoted, organized and executed crimes against humanity on scales larger than that of any drug trafficking shipment made to the U.S.
While the notorious: Salvatore Mancuso, Diego Fernando Murillo, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, Francisco Javier Zuluaga, Guillermo Pérez Alzate, Martín Peñaranda Osorio, Manuel Enrique Torregrosa, Henán Giraldo Serna, Edwin Mauricio Gómez, Diego Alberto Ruiz, Juan Carlos Sierra, Nodier Giraldo Giraldo, and Eduardo Enrique Vengoechea are being prosecuted in New York, Texas, Washington D.C., and Florida, there are victims waiting for justice and reparation throughout the Colombian countryside, particularly in the states of Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Cesar, Arauca, Nariño, Córdoba and the entire region of Urabá.
Colombian Government and US Embassy
President Uribe said that a primary reason for approving the extradition of the 15 paramilitaries was that these leaders continued to commit crimes while in prison and that, in order to put an end to that, they lost the protection against extradition granted to them by the Justice and Peace Law. The same day the paramilitaries were extradited, President Uribe explained at a press conference that the decision to extradite the paramilitary chiefs was because “…Some of them continued to commit crimes after their incorporation to the Justice and Peace Law, others failed to adequately cooperate with the justice system and all of them failed to give reparations to the victims, since they have not returned the goods and wealth in their possession and/or have been stalling the reparation process.”
But we should ask, why didn’t the paramilitaries lose ALL the benefits granted to them by Law 975 of 2005 (i.e. maximum eight years in prison)? Why did they only lose their immunity against extradition to the United States? Instead of controlling the continuous illegal activities of these paramilitary leaders and punishing them for violating the agreements made through the negotiation process, why does the Colombian government agree to extradite them and leave as “unfinished business” the judicial process in their own country?
According to a high-ranking official in the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General’s Office who met with the FOR delegation in August, these paramilitaries were not collaborating with the unit’s prosecutors. The commanders “refused to speak to the prosecutors from the Human Rights Unit, and we would continuously get excuses such as: X paramilitary is sleeping, Y is busy, and Z is currently and temporarily not available.
“They did not want to share information with our unit because they were not receiving any benefits, and it was not in their interest to speak the truth about the atrocities because with us, they would have to serve sentences that exceed the eight years that they are given through the Justice and Peace Law. The only prosecutors they were interested in talking to were from the Justice and Peace Unit, because they had an obligation to do so if they wanted to ‘prove’ that they were telling the truth for the victims,” explained the official.
Telling the truth was a condition for their benefits. But they understood that they would obtain no gains by taking part in the investigations carried out by the Attorney General’s Human Rights Unit, since this is an entirely separate process criminalizing them. Under the Justice and Peace Law, they are not required to cooperate with prosecutors other than the Justice and Peace prosecutors established by Law 975 as a result of negotiations between paramilitaries and the State. If the paramilitaries were only speaking with prosecutors from the Justice an Peace Unit because they wanted to receive the benefits, and thus were only confessing the bare minimum of information regarding the crimes and atrocities for which they are responsible, it is obvious that the Colombian system has not served the victims who are still waiting to hear the complete truth about what happened to their loved ones.
If Colombian human rights groups and activists – and the president himself - believe that the Justice and Peace Law has been a failure thus far, why not allow for the time and necessary reforms to be implemented so that the victims feel that justice was served? Why extradite the paramilitaries to the United States, and completely ignore the fact that Colombian society is still waiting for justice, instead of extraditing the paramilitaries after they pay their dues to society?
U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, specified in a press conference on the same day the paramilitaries were extradited that these men were facing charges for possession of illicit drugs and drug trafficking, money laundering and related offenses and material support of terrorism (not for directing and promoting terrorism). He added, “Of course, the legal system in the U.S. cannot give Colombian prosecutors more access to those 14 or 15 men than they would have in Colombia. Those men will have their defense attorneys in the U.S. and their own legal rights in the U.S., but our commitment is to facilitate access to the extradited men.”
“The prosecutors in the Justice Department will share their evidence and information with Colombia’s prosecutors,” the ambassador said, “allowing them the opportunity to examine, analyze, and decide on how they wish to proceed in accordance with the Justice and Peace Law.” Brownfield added, “That being said, what we cannot do, of course, is change the free will and the attitude of these fourteen or fifteen persons who have been extradited… They have rights, such as the right to access to the evidence against them, the right to respond to the accusations against them, the right to respond, or not respond, to questions and the right to allow, or not allow access to them.” This access really translates to arranging virtual hearings through the use of technology. Nonetheless, the only hearing that any of the chiefs requested involved Mancuso, but it has been cancelled three consecutive times in recent weeks. According to the State Department, the petition from the Supreme Court in Colombia requesting the virtual hearing was not given with enough notice to properly arrange for it, and from Colombia, the Interior Ministry announced that it was cancelled because they don’t have the funds to allocate to the virtual hearing.
However, it is clear that the information that the 15 extradited paramilitaries will share in the U.S. courts will consist mostly of drug trafficking activity, because they are not obligated to talk about their penal cases in the Colombian justice system. Moreover, the Fifth Amendment protects their right to remain silent in order not to self-incriminate. These paramilitary leaders have to right to “voluntarily” share information and continue collaborating with the Colombian justice system, but why would they willingly tell a US judge that they are responsible for murders in Colombia and have this information influence the verdict in the U.S? Already, the paramilitaries’ attorneys have rejected some requests from Colombia to interview the commanders.
An option for the current situation might be something the Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzon mentioned during his visit to the Urabá region in late August. Garzon was witnessing the exhumation of a mass grave along with the Attorney General of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno. “There have been cases,” he said, “in which the U.S. returned extradited criminals to Spain so that they finish their respective sentences.” This could be applied to Colombian paramilitaries who could be temporarily returned to Colombia to finish what was left as “in process” under the Justice and Peace process.
If governments with such global influence as the United States fail to postpone the extradition of these criminals until Colombia prosecutes its own criminals for crimes against its own citizens, what kind of standards are we setting for international justice? How many pounds of cocaine that have entered the United States equal the number of persons disappeared in Colombia?
These two issues are not separate as the paramilitaries used their drug trafficking money to fund their illegal organization. We cannot continue to perpetrate imperialistic ideologies that prioritize the U.S. legal agenda by accepting that these paramilitary chiefs serve sentences in the United States for drug trafficking before they finish their judicial cases in Colombia and are prosecuted for their crimes against society. They should be prosecuted for their drug trafficking activity, but who says that this has priority over massive human rights violations? Why was their extradition imperative? The crimes and violations they committed require a long reparation process in Colombia. Drug trafficking is also a crime in Colombia, which has a court and judges that should be capable of prosecuting them in their own territory. It is now clear who calls the shots in the political sphere between Colombia and the United States and who is left behind the scenes rendered as invisible elements, powerless and as redundant victims of an unjust society. 
Concerns and Human Rights Organizations
International and Colombian human rights organizations are concerned about the lack of guarantees for continuing a “real” process that will grant the victims the truth that is long overdue. They fear that now that the paramilitaries have been shipped to the United States, there will be no justice for them in Colombia—or elsewhere. They believe that the crimes committed against their loved ones will no longer have a place on the president’s agenda.
According to Jesuit priest and human rights defender, Father Javier Giraldo, the extradition was a way for the Colombian government to do damage control, since some of the paramilitaries were incriminating high-ranking officials in government and military positions (such as the case of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó) and because of the para-political scandals that were getting too close to Uribe’s highly protected nucleus.
If criminals were able to negotiate a peace process with the Colombian government that results in a guarantee that, despite the hundreds of atrocities and human rights violations, they will only serve eight years in prison; if after such negotiations these criminals still continued to coordinate and authorize violations from their prison cells, and if they are given the privilege to confess whatever they think is “sufficient” and all this is called ‘justice and peace,’ my question then is: What kind of peace and justice are the victims obtaining?
Under US law, the extradited paramilitaries are not obliged in any way to testify or to serve a sentence for any crimes committed, besides those being prosecuted by the United States. How would people in the United States respond if it were the other way around? What if U.S citizens responsible for massive human rights violations, for killing and disappearing innocent people, for failing to respect a peace process, were extradited elsewhere (you pick a place) before completing their trial and sentence and justice was served for the victims? Would this be considered justice and reparation for the U.S. public and society?
At the Berkeley School of Law, a group of law students under the leadership of Roxanna Altholz is advocating on behalf of Colombian victims of paramilitaries in the US justice system. “The United States should not conduct these prosecutions for drug trafficking at the expense of the investigations for murder,” says Altholz. Her group wants to ensure that the murder prosecutions against the paramilitary leaders are not paralyzed as a result of the drug trafficking charges in the United States.
It is our responsibility as US citizens to question the actions of the State Department and the policies, petitions, and negotiations, and interferences made in countries such as Colombia. Extraditing a large group of key leaders in a group that terrorized and committed massive human rights violations before they can serve and actively participate and finish a peace process and offer real options for a reparation process on behalf of their victims should not be reduced to being an extradition of drug dealers and traffickers. These criminals are now in US territory, but should they really be there, instead of confessing their crimes in their homeland?
