Colombian rebel leader extradited to U.S.
By Berta Joubert-Ceci
In an act of compliance with the will of
its U.S. masters, on Dec. 31 the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe
Vélez handed over guerrilla member Ricardo Palmera to the FBI for
extradition to the United States.
This unprecedented act marks the first
time that a leading member of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces-Peoples'
Army (FARC-EP) has been extradited to the United States for
prosecution.
Palmera--better known by his Simón
Bolívar-inspired pseudonym "Simón Trinidad"--had been detained,
or, better said, kidnapped in Quito, Ecuador, on Jan. 2, 2004.
He had been
there to accomplish a clandestine mission requested by the FARC: to find a
suitable place for a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
and other international personalities to work out a solution for the return of
the FARC's prisoners of war through a humanitarian prisoner
exchange.
Trinidad's capture was carried out through a joint action of the
Interpol, CIA and the Colombian and Ecuadorian armed forces. It was reminiscent
of the murderous anti-communist Operation Condor of the 1970s.
Trinidad
was then extradited to Colombia. He remained in maximum security prison there
until Dec. 31. He faced 100 legal charges of terrorism, kidnapping, drug
trafficking and rebellion that guaranteed 81 months in prison, according to his
lawyer in Colombia, Oscar Silva.
Trinidad's transfer from the
Boyacá jail to Bogotá was a three-hour, extremely well-armed
action dubbed "Operation Freedom." The Colombian army surrounded the prison
while four military Black Hawk helicopters--the one assigned to carry him named
"Batman"for the trip to the capital's El Dorado International Airport. There,
all flights had been canceled in preparation for the operation. On the runway, a
U.S. government Gulf Stream-5 airplane was ready to take him to Washington,
D.C., in the company of the FBI.
As he entered the plane, Trinidad shouted
in Spanish: "Long live Bolívar, Bolívar lives! Long live the FARC,
the people's army!"
In Washington that afternoon he was taken to federal
court before Judge John Facciola. Trinidad will face charges of kidnapping,
terrorism and drug trafficking on Jan. 5.
The kidnapping charges stem from
the February 2003 incident when the FARC shot at a small plane flown by U.S.
contractors/agents over territory controlled by the insurgents in
Caquetá, in the south of the country. These contractors are just some of
the many U.S. military or military-associated personnel sent by the United
States to Colombia to fight against the insurgency under Plan Colombia. The
agents, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves have since been kept
captive by the FARC.
Trinidad's extradition to the United States took
place after President Uribe issued an ultimatum to the FARC. With no possibility
of negotiation, he unilaterally demanded that the insurgents release all
captives by Dec. 30, as the only condition for annulment of the extradition
order.
'I am on the side of progressives!'
Who is Trinidad?
His story is noteworthy, for it illustrates the reasons why so many young people
join the insurgency. While his background differs from that of the overwhelming
majority of the FARC members, his reasons for joining the armed movement reflect
the hopes of so many in Colombia.
A native of Valledupar, in the northeast
of Colombia, bordering Venezuela, Trinidad belonged to a wealthy and influential
family. He studied at Harvard University. He worked as a banker and teacher,
cooperating particularly with the peasant progressive movement that was very
strong in the area.
In moving testimony by Imelda Daza Cotes, a friend and
political associate of Trinidad, written in Colombian anthropologist Yezid
Campos' recent book "Memoria de los Silenciados, El Baile Rojo" (Memory of the
Silenced, the Red Dance), she vividly recounts the dangerous atmosphere in
Valledupar during the mid-1980s, the time of the formation of the Patriotic
Union.
The Patriotic Union (UP) was an effort by the FARC and the
Colombian Com munist Party to form a broad alternative party that would include
all sectors that had suffered under the dictatorship of Liberals and
Conservatives and achieve peace and social justice. The UP's main vehicle would
be unarmed and peaceful, through the electoral arena. It was launched on May 28,
1985, as a result of the peace accords between the FARC and Colombian President
Belisario Betan court. The government committed to respect and guarantee the
security of the members, among many other written promises.
In 1986, the
first elections in which the UP members participated, they had a historic
success: five senators, nine representatives to the House, 14 state deputies,
351 councilpeople and 23 mayors were elected. However, as this victory took
place, so did a state campaign of terrorism and annihilation against the UP that
still goes on.
More than 3,500 members and sympathizers were killed, many
disappeared and many were forced into exile.
Daza Cotes narrates the
multiple stories of increasing threats and assassinations by the Colombian army,
the disappearances and the forced exiles--but also the people's fierce resolve
to continue struggling for justice and true democracy in Colombia. And she
writes about the choices they were forced to make.
One of the stories is
about Ricardo Palmera. She says of him, "I do not think there was a man in
Valledupar as honest and honorable as Ricardo Palmera Pineda." Daza Cotes did
not share the idea of armed struggle, but she points out that while she and her
comrades, including Palmera, wanted to peacefully solve the problems of poverty
and social inequities that gave rise to the guerrilla, "the response from the
establishment and the ruling class was violence. Their decision was to
assassinate us and silence us with the help of weapons."
She concludes
that "many people decided to join the insurgency because they did not find how
to work politically in a peaceful and legal way." She later told a friend:
"Definitely, there is no alternative. The truth is that the only way you can
struggle in this country is through the armed struggle. There are no other
possibilities."
One of those who decided to join the insurgency was
Simón Trinidad. In 2002, during the time of the negotiations between the
FARC and President Pas trana, he said: "I chose this new life with the guerrilla
because I am on the side of progressive people who fight against the 10 percent
of landowners who control 90 percent of the arable land in Colombia. For them, I
turned into their enemy."
Many in Colombia, including relatives of FARC
captives, view the extradition of Trinidad to the United States negatively. They
are afraid that Uribe, as he has done in the past, will try a military, violent
solution to the hostage situation in which the hostages could be hurt, instead
of a negotiated solution.
Reprinted from the Jan. 13, 2005, issue of Workers World newspaper
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