Pubdate: Weds, 29 Dec 2004
Source: Narco News Bulletin (Latin America Web)
Contact:  http://www.narconews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2063
Author: Sean Donahue

U.S. Authorities Have Remained Strangely Silent Regarding The Colombian 
Government's Decision To Delay Or Cancel The Extradition Of Auc Chief 
Salvatore Mancuso On Cocaine Trafficking And Money Laundering Charges.

THE NARCO-TERRORIST WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

Why Isn't Mancuso Being Extradited?

On December 11, Stewart Tuttle, head of the Political Affairs division of 
the U.S. Embassy in Bogota looked on as Salvatore Mancuso, commander of 
Colombia's largest and most brutal network of right-wing death squads, 
ceremonially surrendered his Berretta to Colombian Peace Commissioner 
Carlos Luis Restrepo.

But Tuttle and his superiors were strangely silent a week later when the 
government of President Alvaro Uribe announced that it would not extradite 
Mancuso to the U.S. to face cocaine trafficking and money laundering 
charges as long as the death squad leader agreed to "cease all illegal 
activities" and encourage other paramilitaries to take part in the 
government's demobilization process. While the U.S. hasn't formally dropped 
its extradition request, neither the U.S. Embassy nor the U.S. State 
Department has issued a public statement about Uribe's decision to delay or 
cancel Mancuso's handover to U.S. authorities -- which is highly unusual to 
say the least, given that Mancuso is the head of a terrorist organization 
and is accused of conspiring to smuggle over seventeen tons of cocaine to 
the U.S. and Europe.

The Charges Against Mancuso

The U.S. State Department has classified Mancuso's organization, the "Self 
Defense Forces of Colombia" (AUC,) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization -- 
the same legal designation that it applies to groups like Ansar al-Islam, 
al-Qa'ida, and Hamas. According to its website, the policy of the State 
Department's Counterterrorism Office, which compiles the list of terrorist 
organizations, is to "make no concessions to terrorists and strike no 
deals" and to "bring terrorists to justice for their crime."

Involvement in the operation of a Foreign Terrorist Organization is a 
capital offense under the PATRIOT Act.

According to the State Department's 2004 Human Rights Report on Colombia, 
compiled under Tuttle's supervision, the AUC remains actively involved in 
terrorist operations throughout Colombia:

"Despite cease-fires declared in the context of demobilization negotiations 
conducted by the AUC--an umbrella organization of different paramilitary 
terrorist groups--with the Government, these terrorists continued to commit 
numerous unlawful and political killings, including of labor leaders, often 
kidnapping and torturing suspected guerrilla sympathizers prior to 
executing them. They also conducted kidnappings for ransom and committed 
'social cleansing' killings of homosexuals and other supposedly 
'undesirable' elements. The AUC terrorists often interfered with personal 
privacy in areas where they exercised de facto control, and regularly 
engaged in military operations in which they endangered civilian lives by 
fighting in urban areas and using civilian dwellings as combat shelter. AUC 
terrorists displaced thousands through both terror-induced forced 
displacements of suspect populations and military operations that drove 
peasants from their homes. AUC terrorists regularly threatened and attacked 
human rights workers and journalists who criticized their illegal 
activities. They also recruited child soldiers. Important strategic and 
financial areas continued to be heavily contested, especially as the 
Government eradicated coca crops, and created anti-kidnapping task forces."

Mancuso has been the main public face of the AUC since the disappearance of 
the organization's founder, Carlos Castano last year. Sources in the 
Colombian human rights community allege that Castano is currently in hiding 
in Israel.

Mancuso's role in massacres, disappearances, and assassinations would be 
sufficient grounds for his prosecution for war crimes and crimes against 
humanity. But the U.S. also claims that Mancuso was involved in a major 
cocaine trafficking operation designed by Castano to fund the AUC. In a 
September 24, 2002 press conference announcing the indictment of Castano, 
Mancuso, and a third AUC leader, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said:

"Today's indictment charges AUC leaders, not as the anti-FARC freedom 
fighters they claim to be, but as criminals - violent drug traffickers who 
poison our citizens and threaten our national security. According to the 
indictment, Carlos Castaqo directed cocaine production and distribution 
activities in AUC-controlled regions of Colombia, including protecting coca 
processing laboratories, setting quality and price controls for cocaine, 
and arranging for and protecting cocaine shipments both within and outside 
of Colombia. Castaqo and his co-defendants used violence, force and 
intimidation to maintain this authority over cocaine trafficking 
activities. For example, the indictment alleges that Castaqo resorted to 
kidnaping and threats, and that Salvatore Mancuso caused the brutal murder 
of another Colombian drug trafficker as retribution for failing to pay a 
drug debt."

He went on to emphasize the seriousness of the charges, saying, "The men 
named in the indictment are accused of selling one of the most dangerous 
and addictive drugs: cocaine. Cocaine, including its derivative form crack, 
remains the most frequently mentioned drug in 14 of the 20 cities in the 
Drug Abuse Warning Network. In addition, cocaine accounted for 50 percent 
of all drug-related episodes in emergency rooms between 1999 and 2000. 
Today, we see more clearly than ever the interdependence between the 
terrorists that threaten American lives and the illegal drugs that threaten 
American potential. As today's indictment reminds us, the lawlessness that 
breeds terrorism is also a fertile ground for the drug trafficking that 
supports terrorism. To surrender to either of these threats is to surrender 
to both."

Tough words. But the U.S. has not followed them up with action. Earlier 
this year, the Colombian government suspended its own arrest order against 
Mancuso and allowed him to address the Colombian legislature -- the U.S. 
remained silent. And military aid has continued to flow to Colombia even 
though the State Department admits that there are widespread ties between 
the Colombian military and the AUC and human rights groups have documented 
the role of the AUC in the election of President Uribe.

Talking With Terrorists

Despite the State Department's stated policy of refusing to negotiate with 
terrorists, both the Colombian and the U.S. press reported that U.S. 
Embassy officials met with representatives of the AUC in May 0f 2003 to 
discuss the indictments against Castano and Mancuso. See (Luis Gomez's 
report -- http://www.narconews.com/Issue30/article801.html) Colombian 
sources place Stewart Tuttle, and his deputy, Alex Lee at these meetings, 
and it seems clear that neither man would have jeopardized his career by 
meeting with terrorists in possible violation of the PATRIOT act without 
authorization from somewhere much higher in the chain of command.

In the weeks that followed the revelations about these meetings, Tuttle and 
Lee, who had previously met frequently with U.S. visitors to Colombia 
disappeared from the Embassy's briefing room.

During this time, an Embassy official, speaking on the condition of 
anonymity, acknowledged that the meetings had taken place, but insisted 
that the Embassy was merely trying to reiterate its desire to have Mancuso 
and Castano surrender themselves to U.S. authorities. (Does this mean that 
if they were stationed in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Tuttle and Lee would 
meet with representatives of al Qu'aida to reiterate their desire to see 
Osama bin Laden surrender for prosecution.)

Apparently, however, Tuttle no longer sees the need to reiterate the U.S.'s 
desire to put Mancuso behind bars. And its hard to believe that the 
Colombian government would cancel its plans to extradite Mancuso without 
consulting the Bush administration. What remains to be seen is who in the 
U.S. decided to let Salvatore Mancuso get away.

So much for the "war on terror."
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MAP posted-by: Beth