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| Caribbean-Latin America | ||
| Colombia Yields 2 Accused Soldiers to U.S. | ||
| 2005-05-06 | ||
| BOGOTÃ, Colombia, May 5 - Two American soldiers arrested by the Colombian police for arms smuggling were handed over to the United States Embassy on Thursday, angering Colombian authorities and ordinary Colombians who believe that the two should face charges here. Under treaty obligations, Allan Tanquary and Jesus Hernandez, Army Special Forces marksmen who had been stationed in Colombia as part of the American effort to fight drugs and Marxist rebels, will be investigated by American officials and, if charged, face trial in the United States. The two men, along with four Colombians, were arrested Tuesday in a luxury gated community in Melgar, where the police found 32,000 rounds of ammunition that they contend was bound for right-wing paramilitary groups. The case has deeply embarrassed the United States, which on Thursday denied that the Bush administration was secretly helping Colombia's brutal paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces, in its fight against Marxist rebels. "There is absolutely no U.S. policy and U.S. support or U.S. inclination or U.S. military operations involved in arming paramilitaries," Richard A. Boucher, a State Department spokesman, said in Washington. "We have declared these groups to be terrorist groups." Senior Colombian authorities tried to stop the transfer of the Americans. The government's inspector general, Edgardo Maya, sent a letter early Thursday to the attorney general's office requesting that the soldiers be held until Colombian authorities could determine if several treaties giving Americans immunity fell in line with the country's 1991 Constitution. But the attorney general's office had already transferred the men to American custody. "What this shows is that we are under the American thumb," said Andrés Baca, 63, an insurance salesman who was in the area where the men were arrested. "What works for them, works for them, and what they don't want to do, they don't do. Our judicial system is dominated by the United States." Colombians are still seething that James C. Hiett, the former Army colonel who ran the American military mission here, was sentenced to just five months by a Brooklyn court in 2000 for failing to report that his wife had been smuggling heroin from Bogotä to New York in diplomatic pouches. His wife, Laurie Ann Hiett, received a five-year term, while their Colombian driver, Jorge Alonso Ayala, remains in a Colombian jail, serving an eight-year sentence.
The latest scandal is particularly worrisome because the Colombian police accused the American soldiers of having ties to a paramilitary organization that has killed thousands of Colombian civilians and finances its war through drug trafficking. The allegations are particularly troubling for President Ãlvaro Uribe, whose government has been locked in disarmament negotiations with the 15,000-member group. Mr. Uribe is already under fire from the United Nations, human rights groups and several Colombian congressmen for pushing new legislation governing the demobilization of the group. These critics say that the bill, which will probably be approved in the coming weeks, does little to guarantee that paramilitary groups are dismantled or that commanders reveal their inner workings. Under the bill, paramilitary commanders, even those wanted for war crimes, would serve less than three years on farms in regions they control because of credits for their participation in talks and for good behavior. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 Uncle Sam is keeping Colombia from falling under the rule of narco-terrorists who may or may not be Communist. If the Colombian public prefers these people as rulers, then they should make their views known by voting for candidates who favor the expulsion of US military advisers and the rejection of US military aid. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-05-06 10:17 |
| #1 Colombians are still seething... Not just for Muslims anymore... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-05-06 02:16 |