[Caption: Uncle Sam’s Sign Says: ‘Sentences of paramilitaries’
Murdered Victim says: ‘I would also like a shorter sentence’]
Indignant Colombians are asking themselves why they bother extraditing narco-trafficking members of right-wing paramilitary groups, when they receive lighter prison sentences in the United States than they do in Colombia.
Daniel Samper Pisano writes for Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper:
“It’s obviously a bit late for the Government to worry about what has become a monstrous mockery of thousands of Colombian victims. They should have thought about that before abruptly agreeing to the extradition of criminals with such terrifying histories.”
And why are U.S. judges letting these murderers off so lightly? Samper puts it in a nutshell:
“Gringo judges consider fighting domestic drug consumption more important than penalizing those responsible for distant massacres.”
By Daniel Samper Pisano
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
August 7, 2008
Colombia – El Tiempo – Original Article (Spanish)
The government fears that Colombian paramilitaries extradited to the United States will negotiate sentences with U.S. judges that are more like rewards than penalties – or in other words prison terms shorter than under the Colombian Law of Justice and Peace, which is already quite lenient. [Under this law, if the paramilitaries make full confessions, they will serve no more than eight years in prison, no matter what atrocities they committed, even crimes against humanity ]. The fleeting time of four to eight years that these perpetrators of massacres would have to serve in Colombia could become just a few months in the United States. And this is in exchange for what? For the narco-paramilitaries to reveal intimate details of the drug business to the judge. It seems that several of them are already blessing the day that they were extradited, now that they have obtained very favorable agreements.
[The paramilitaries emerged in the last century essentially as a reaction to left-wing guerillas, like the FARC, and they were often backed by or worked directly with the Colombian government. In fact “para-politics” is a common phrase in Colombia, used to refer to the influence that paramilitaries wield on the government .]
It’s obviously a bit late for the Government to worry about what has become a monstrous mockery of thousands of Colombian victims. They should have thought about that before abruptly agreeing to the extradition of criminals with such terrifying histories.
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