Extradition of Paramilitary Chiefs - a Blow to Truth

Ah, the oft forgot War On Drugs(Foreign Version{Spanish w/subtitles}Another convenient money waster that mkes us so very popular abroad. Like this little move that takes some hard-core criminal types and instead of allowing them to face justice for theie truly heinous crimes in Colombia(like murder, torture, rape, infanticide) instead they'll face some drug charges in the States and then probably be smuggled into Irag where they'll get sweetheart contracts w/ blackwater.
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original-ips

COLOMBIA: Extradition of Paramilitary Chiefs - a Blow to Truth
By Constanza Vieira*

BOGOTÁ, May 13 (IPS) - Fourteen former paramilitary chiefs were quietly extradited from Colombia to the United States before dawn on Tuesday on drug trafficking charges, in a move that drew criticism from human rights experts.

The militia chiefs were safe from extradition as long as they respected the 2005 "justice and peace law" that governed the demobilisation of the far-right paramilitary groups, which are blamed by the United Nations for 80 percent of the human rights crimes committed in Colombia’s four-decade civil war.

President Álvaro Uribe said the 14 leaders were extradited because they continued committing crimes after demobilising, were not providing full confessions as required by the justice and peace law, and had failed to compensate their victims, "by hiding assets or delaying their handover."

"Manipulated truth is no longer truth. Truth has to be told without calculations of timing, without delays," said the president.

"The government has requested, and the United States has agreed, that the wealth that the extradited persons agree to hand over through accords with judges in that country be dedicated to reparations for victims in Colombia," he said.

"There is nothing standing in the way of moral reparations being made from the United States," added Uribe, to calm the worries of the victims of the paramilitaries, who include nearly four million people forcibly displaced from their homes.

Taken by surprise by the extradition, Rodrigo Tovar, alias "Jorge 40", known for killing off Kankuamo Indians in the northern Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, cursed and shouted that they had been betrayed, which would seem to indicate that there was no negotiation with the paramilitary chiefs for their extradition.

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complete article here