The FARC sees the situation of “Simon Trinidad” and those of at least two or three other FARC members extradited to the US and serving prison sentences there as necessary to resolve for an eventual overall peace accord, as well as to resolve the judicial situations of FARC members in Colombian jails or under indictment.

“Simon Trinidad” was arrested in Ecuador in January 2004, when the FARC says he was trying to promote peace, though which US and Colombian authorities saw as “Simon” allegedly trying to help negotiate a swap of FARC members in Colombian jails for three US citizens or others held captive by the FARC. “Simon” was deported shortly his arrest to Colombia and was extradited to the United States reportedly on Dec 31, 2004, and is serving a 60-year sentence in a US federal prison in Colorado on a conviction of an association of kidnapping charge of three US Department of Defense subcontractors whose surveillance plane crashed hundreds of kilometers away from where “Simon” was. Multiple other charges against “Simon” on drug-trafficking ended in mistrial or absolution. FARC leaders have called the conviction a miscarriage of justice, saying that “Simon” has never been in its combat/military operational command and was a kind of political spokesperson. When I visited the FARC “Distension Zone” several times during the ill-fated peace talks under then-President Andres Pastrana, I met with “Simon Trinidad” and saw him as a spokesperson or with a role on political themes and peace-process facilitation.

Ironically apparently tracking with the FARC contention on “Simon,” a Western former diplomat who when in the diplomatic corps had closely followed “Simon’s” case from the time of his arrest in Ecuador in 2004 told me, preferring to remain anonymous, that an ambitious US assistant district attorney was the driving force for the extradition of “Simon Trinidad” (already in a Colombian jail) and that the prosecutor was supposedly trying to burnish his own credentials and make a big name for himself for personal, career or political aspirations, when there was a questionable basis for the extradition and that it has caused all sorts of unnecessary complications. The former diplomat, a law-and-order hardliner who said that while “Simon” is no saint and deserved to be serving jail time in Colombia for other cases, he shouldn’t have been extradited to the United States.

“It makes me want to vomit,” the former diplomat said of what he viewed as the US assistant district attorney grandstanding. The former diplomat said, in his view, that since the prosecutor couldn’t find anyone from Al Queda and that because the prosecutor supposedly may have felt a need “to check the box” of nailing a terrorist to help climb the career ladder, he went after “Simon.” The prosecutor sees that the conviction of “Simon Trinidad” by a US jury vindicated the extradition and that justice was served. However, the former diplomat wondered if any jury not very knowledgeable of Colombia and of the FARC could fathom all the intricacies of a case like “Simon’s,” particularly in an emotionally charged atmosphere of the “war on terror.”

The FARC has always called for “Simon” to be released from US prison and sent to Havana to be part of its negotiating team. The US rejects this. Possible options that observers have raised may be for “Simon” to be remanded either straight to Colombian penitentiary custody, or to the penitentiary custody of a third country which has legal treaties with both the United State and Colombia for such a move as a kind of “half-way” stop for an eventual remanding of “Simon” to Colombia, for his sentence to be continued. However, United States international judicial treaty conditions evidently require that time of sentence and other sentence circumstances must track to a certain level with the US sentence, if a prisoner is to be remanded to another country.

The FARC thinks that a US presidential pardon or commutation of sentence could be a convenient solution. While only President Obama knows if he would eventually grant or not a pardon or commutation of sentence to “Simon,” with a Colombian overall peace accord in mind, it doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. US Presidential Special Envoy Bernard Aronson has publicly said that “Simon” was convicted of a very serious crime and has a sentence to serve. Moreover, how would Pres. Obama’s possible consideration of a pardon or commutation of sentence be affected, if at all, by a You Tube video posted months earlier of “Simon” saying several years ago that the Nobel peace prize awarded to Pres. Obama should be for the “Pax Romana”?

The FARC sees “Simon” as being a revolutionary’s revolutionary, “a man of iron” and of profound revolutionary integrity. “Simon” is a symbol for the FARC “struggle.” Having studied at Harvard University, “Simon” could be of great help in the peace process,” the FARC’s “Ivan Marquez” told me.

How to resolve the “Simon” issue? Without a presidential pardon or commutation of sentence, it would have to be via the established procedures of the US federal judicial system, through a convicted person’s right to appeals or requests for reduction of sentence, parole, probation, mitigation of prison living conditions, or other judicial considerations.

The US attorney general perhaps could have the district attorney make a petition to the court for a revision of sentence, and if granted, “Simon” could be maybe released on time served or have his case remanded to Colombia or another country, with the adjusted sentence qualifying within parameters for such a remanding. But appeals and petitions could be rejected, and if so, “Simon” would have to continue serving his sentence in a US prison. What would this mean for the peace talks? It’s a good question with no answer now.

Questions for US officials to contemplate are: If the United States releases convicted felons or suspends extradition requests just because of a peace process per se, could this weaken the US judicial system and undermine its deterrent of sentencing and of reach, in the eyes of foreign armed groups or others who harm or may harm US citizens? (A question that Colombia is similarly facing in its own peace process, as noted above.) Or would it serve a greater good in supposedly enhancing US national security by helping to bring peace, in this case, to Colombia?

The debate boils down to: Are the terms to which Pres Santos and the FARC leadership agreeing an acceptable price to pay for peace—aimed to save lives, open Colombia to greater development and prosperity for a wider range of its population, expand democratic participation, fortify the Constitution and institutionality, and contribute to national/international security—as Pres. Santos, the FARC and other peace-process supporters argue?

Or, as Uribe argues, would it eventually result in the fuelling of future (perhaps worse) violence, greater drug-trafficking and other crime, and threaten Colombia’s Constitution and institutionality, not only to the detriment of Colombia, but also to that of the international community, because it would tinker supposedly harmfully with Colombia’s Constitutional and institutional balance and would allow those who confess involvement in grave war crimes or with illegal drugs-crops to not go to jail, and thus it would supposedly perhaps be an incentive for present and future outlawed groups to grow their strength to try to get similar judicial benefits?

That is for Colombians to decide; they have to forge their own destiny, even though the international community can try to help and does help with some things.

But if Colombians (or others) are ever to reconcile, they are going to have to take the steps, even starting with baby steps. Stresses Harvard conflict-resolution expert William Ury, a helpful start would be to replace hostility with hospitality. As Ury quoted US President Abraham Lincoln in an especially important meeting where I was present, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Some of the hardest issues—which make me think that achieving an overall peace accord by the end of 2016 apparently still could be an arduous slog, despite the agreement on the United Nations and CELAC to participate in verification of an eventual bilateral cease-fire—are:

1) The FARC insists on a National Constituent Assembly (Constitutional Assembly) for ratification of an overall peace accord, saying that Pres. Santos’ planned “unilateral” plebiscite is not judicially nor politically viable as Constitutionally or practically binding, according to the current Constitution, and that the Constitutional Court could strike it down. And even if the Constitutional Court rules it constitutional, the FARC thinks that it still doesn’t give the FARC the strongest guarantees, as the FARC sees a National Constituent Assembly would. That said, Pres. Santos, as a “red-line” condition, rejects a National Constituent Assembly over fears it could turn into a Pandora’s box and put what is agreed to in the peace talks at risk. FARC leaders have told me that they can never have too many protective “guarantees” on not being extradited—one of a number of reasons why they want a National Constituent Assembly.

2) The “ending of paramilitarism” issue. In a recent El Espectador newspaper interview, the FARC’s “Pablo Catatumbo” says that not every single post-“paramilitary”/”paramilitary” individual has to be addressed, but that the government, the FARC insists, has to effectively confront and subdue the “paramilitary” phenomenon, which the FARC says continues in the BACRIM (criminal bands) and other forms. “Pablo Catatumbo” said that the government must thoroughly purge the Armed Forces and police of members supposedly linked to “paramilitarism.” The Armed Forces aren’t going to like the FARC telling them how to run their own institution and whom to purge.

3) Physical security issues. It sounds like this should be handled without making a thorn bush. But after the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and other “paramilitary” groups demobilized, some 2,200 demobilized “paramilitary” members have been murdered, according to former AUC leader Freddy “El Aleman” Rincon. And the FARC remembers very bitterly the decimation of the Union Patriotica political party which it supported.

4) The form and conditions of “laying down of weapons” (“dejacion de armas”). This is still not decided, and the FARC appears to want to have some sort of putting them in a secured verified “escrow” (if that would be a word of appropriate description) before their eventual decommissioning or destruction, as part of guarantees that an overall peace accord is fulfilled.

5) How to do the gathering of FARC troops in preparation to demobilization of the FARC as a guerrilla movement? The FARC plans to continue to stay organized and mobilized as a legal, unarmed, political, social movement.

6) Resolving the so-called “salvedades”/loose ends (of partially agreed points/categories) left “in the freezer.” Some have philosophical aspects, like “economic model,” which Pres. Santos said shouldn’t be part of the peace talks, or multinational company-controlling and energy/mining issues. The FARC and many other Colombians, including former president/now Sen. Alvaro Uribe, were aghast at the recent sale of the ISAGEN mostly state-owned hydro-electric power company to a private Canadian holding company and only bidder, though Pres. Santos insists on the sale being for Colombia’s good.

7) “Simon Trinidad.” The victims’/justice agreement states that all FARC prisoners are to be released. But US justice isn’t bound by that, regarding “Simon” and other FARC members in US prisons.

8) Details in all points partially agreed. For example, how to provide social, economic and reintegration measures to FARC members returning to civilian society?

9) How to do the judicial frame-work/mechanism for the Colombian Armed Forces/police, which is to be consistent with and respectful of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, according to the victims’/justice agreement, an item yet to be determined?

10) The uncertainty of FARC members after their laying down of arms and reintegration into civilian society. FARC leaders, mid-level commanders, and rank and file are very concerned for their future. Where are they going to work? Can they make a decent living? Would people in their cities, towns or villages reject them, some even trying to do harm to them?

Copyright © 2016, Steve Salisbury, All Rights Reserved.