|
Newsbrief:
Colombia
Guerrillas
Demand
Return
of
Commander
Extradited
to
US
3/4/05
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/377/farc.shtml
Colombia's leftist rebel
army, the 17,000-strong FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is
demanding the release of one of its top commanders, Ricardo Palmera (better
known by his nom de guerre Simon Trinidad), as a key condition for the
release of 63 hostages it is holding, including three American mercenaries
and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Trinidad was
extradited to the US by the government of President Alvaro Uribe to face
cocaine trafficking and kidnapping charges.
While the FARC began as a
peasant-based guerrilla army in 1964, it has, along with nearly everyone
else involved in Colombia's 40-year civil war, turned to the coca and cocaine
trade as a means of raising money. Beginning with the Clinton administration's
Plan Colombia in the late 1990s, the US has funneled more than $2 billion
in military, police, and economic assistance to the Colombian government
in an effort to suppress the drug traffic. After the September 2001
attacks on the US, the Bush administration dropped all pretense of limiting
US assistance to the war on drugs and has openly embraced a war of counterinsurgency
designed to defeat the FARC and the smaller Army of National Liberation
(ELN). The administration has budgeted more than $700 million for
that effort in its 2006 budget proposal.
But the war continues, and
in a
February 25 communiqué from somewhere "in the mountains of Colombia"
posted two days later on its web site,
the rebels blamed the Uribe government's decision to extradite Simon Trinidad,
as well as the pending extradition of Nayibe Rojas ("Sonia") for ending
the possibility of a prisoner exchange. "The sorrow and deserved
discontent of the families of prisoners of war with the government of Uribe
grows because he has frozen the possibility of a humanitarian exchange...
with the unjust extradition of Simon Trinidad to the United States.
Family members know that without the return of Simon to Colombia, the possibilities
for an agreement on an exchange are far from being realized, and the responsibility
lies with Alvaro Uribe and his government."
The FARC communiqué
added that the group's proposal for a prisoner exchange was non-negotiable.
"We will deliver the group of people to be exchanged if we receive from
the government all the guerrillas in its power, including Simon Trinidad,
Ricardo Gonzalez, and Sonia."
Family members of prisoners
on both sides, don't hold your breath.
-- END --
|
Issue #377
-- 3/4/05
The
Ignorance
and
the
Damage
Done
|
International
Harm
Reduction
Battle
Heating
Up
|
National
Drug
Control
Strategy
Taking
Lumps
from
All
Sides
|
Under
New
South
Dakota
Anti-Meth
Law,
Drug
Use
Equals
Child
Abuse
|
DRCNet
Needs
You
to
Write
the
Senate
|
DRCNet/Perry
Fund
Event
to
Feature
Rep.
John
Conyers
and
Kemba
Smith,
March
9
in
Washington,
DC
|
Coasters
to
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the
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and
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Up
for
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Newsbrief:
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Extradited
to
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if
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