The Colombian government under its latest president Iván Duque, expressing all the reactionary ambitions of his backer ex-president Álvaro Uribe, is determined to reduce the 2016 Peace Agreement with FARC to a shell, weakening by all and any means this communist party and its political activity throughout the country. Alvaro Michaels Reports.
In FRFI 270, we reported how in May 2019, the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force (FARC) Congressman Jesús Santrich was seized by the Public Prosecutors office – without charge – at the very moment he was released from prison by order of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). For 30 years he was a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) fighting against the state. The US Drug Enforcement Agency wanted him extradited on the most dubious drug smuggling charges, yet refused to provide evidence. Then at the last minute, it very reluctantly handed over illegally obtained, unclear audio/film footage involving Santrich that was useless. The DEA had tried to trap him in conversations with an agent provocateur who convinced the almost blind Santrich to discuss reintegration projects for demobilized FARC guerrillas. The JEP court viewed this US ‘evidence’ as inadequate to deport him, and declared that he should tried in Colombia. The re-arrest was quickly ‘legalised’ while President Duque appealed against the decision of the JEP. Meanwhile Santrich was released again and took his seat in the Congress.
In June the Colombian Supreme Court took over the investigation but so far the court has not received either evidence or witness testimonies from Washington. Both Santrich and the FARC have consistently said that they were being ‘framed’ by the DEA and former chief prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez. Martinez resigned immediately after the JEP ordered an investigation against him and DEA officials over alleged misconduct and human rights violations.
Santrich was due to present himself for his first Supreme Court hearing on Tuesday 9 July, but on 30 June he disappeared. Someone allegedly warned him of a plot to either assassinate or illegally extradite him. Santrich then abandoned his security guards while visiting a transition zone for former FARC soldiers. His family fear for his life. Not even the FARC seem to know where its Congressional group leader is. The Court issued an arrest order on 10 July, which was immediately praised by president Duque whose Military Intelligence, without evidence, told media that Santrich fled to Venezuela, which would be a violation of both the peace process and his proceedings before the Supreme Court. If he also fails to appear at any of the JEP’s hearings he may lose his non-extradition guarantee. Nobody has heard of the congressman since the night he disappeared. The US Department of Justice may now never have to provide evidence of the supposed drug trafficking. Santrich is not the first former FARC leader to disappear. The whereabouts of three other key figures are also unknown.
Whilst the overwhelming majority of the armed ex-FARC are honouring the 2016 peace agreement, the constant attacks on them and political disagreements leave some 1,700 members who have remained determined to fight on. Since 2016 some 160 ex-FARC fighters and their family members have been murdered. On Tuesday 16 July, Leandro Chavarria ex-guerrilla of FARC–EP was murdered. In February Rodrigo Cadete 52, was killed with nine comrades by the Colombian army. He had taken part in the four year negotiations in Havana. He refused to accept the deal and was expelled from the then FARC as it took on its new legal form. He was working, with Gentil Duarte, to unite those who have rejected the present peace programme because of the way it has been flagrantly undermined by the government. Using the revolting language of the oppressor, President Duque announced Cadete’s ‘neutralisation’.
Meanwhile the neo-fascist ex-president Uribe wants to change Colombia’s constitution retroactively to allow all convicted politicians to appeal sentences imposed after 1991. The proposed law was tabled 23 July. Uribe’s protégé Andres Felipe Arias, former agriculture minister, was extradited on 12 July from the United States to where he had fled, to serve a 17-year sentence in Colombia that he received in 2014 for embezzling $25 million meant for poor farmers. Uribe’s bill has been dubbed ‘Andres Felipe Arias Bill’. He is now held in a luxurious Colombian military detention centre after being flown from the USA in a chartered aircraft.
The Supreme Court’s Appeals Chamber could be asked to revise the sentences of approximately 250 politicians convicted by the high court since the 1991 constitution. This would open many extremely ‘sensitive’ cases of politicians with paramilitary ties, the Uribe administration’s bribery of congressmen and a countless number of politicians with ties to drug traffickers. Uribe is obviously preparing his escape from his own forthcoming trial. He is accused – since February 2018 – of joining his cattle ranching and drug trafficking neighbours to form the ‘Bloque Metro’ paramilitary group when governor of Antioquia. Meanwhile six wiretaps incriminating Uribe have been partially erased, according to the weekly ‘Semana’. The prosecuting inspector has already survived an assassination attempt on her life in May. Investigations into claims against Uribe’s connection with the Medellin Cartel have been complicated because of the assassination of several key witnesses and the alleged pressure on the surviving witnesses.
Meanwhile, a new ‘anti-guerrilla’ paramilitary group, the United Colombo-Venezuelan Self-Defense Forces (AUCV), has emerged in the border region with Venezuela, with massacres in the Cucuta area. Anti-guerrilla pamphlets signed by this group have appeared in the area. On social media, a video of armed men exhibiting decapitated heads has reportedly been circulating. Certainly, the military retreat of FARC has led to fighting between the drug trafficking organization ‘Los Rastrojos’ and ‘La Linea,’ a regional crime group, against which the Ejército de Liberación Nacional, (ELN) is working. Colombia’s largest drug trafficking organization, the AGC (the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) with more than 7,000 armed fighters has fought against the ELN for years. The ELN’s peace talks with state were halted after the start of this year, the ELN having been attacked by the Colombian air force during a unilateral cease fire.
So much of the ruling class in Colombia, for so long, has been party to the export trade in drugs, and the violent trafficking organisations have received semi-official support either directly, or directly as the state struggled to eliminate the old FARC and the ELN. Now the politicians who worked with the common criminal gangs that FARC fought against, are seeking open political support in the Senate and House of Representatives against their own penal sentences. Meanwhile in US jails FARC political prisoners remain incarcerated on manipulated ‘drug’ charges. This is bourgeois ‘justice’ and a severe lesson for those who believe that the political creatures of imperialism are anything but inveterate opponents of peace, honesty, principle and decency.
