US embassy cable - 05BOGOTA3555

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BOGOTA 003555 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/14/2015 
TAGS: PTER, KJUS, PINR, PGOV, PHUM, CO, Demobilization 
SUBJECT: DEMOBILIZATION LAW APPROVED IN COMMITTEE 
 
REF: BOGOTA 03223 
 
Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood for reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) On April 12, the Senate and House First Committees 
finished voting on the Law for Justice and Peace, including 
on the three most controversial articles (reftel).  The 
changes made to the text provide added safeguards for our 
ability to extradite drug traffickers.  Article 2 on the 
scope of the law was passed and does not include any 
reference to an armed conflict.  Article 20 was passed.  It 
allows authorities to combine all charges against a 
beneficiary for procedural reasons only.  Language allowing a 
possible loophole to avoid extradition was removed.  Article 
64 was rejected, although it is likely to return in another 
form.  It had said that belonging to a paramilitary group was 
an act of sedition and a political crime.  Instead, an 
alternative article was passed that allows demobilized 
persons to be pardoned for certain minor, non-violent crimes. 
 Article 67 on the law's time frame passed easily.  Three new 
articles were approved: (1) the GOC will allocate necessary 
funding to the existing asset forfeiture law, (2) the GOC 
will provide education, employment projects, counseling to 
the demobilized, and (3) the Superior District Court 
magistrates implementing the law will be elected by the 
Supreme Court.  There will be an eight calendar day waiting 
period until the Senate and House plenaries take up the 
debate.  End summary. 
 
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Article 2: No Armed Conflict 
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2. (C) Article 2 describes the scope of the law and specifies 
it will regulate investigation, processing, sanction, and 
legal benefits for members of illegal armed groups (IAGs), 
who demobilize and contribute to national reconciliation. 
The article avoids reference to an "armed conflict," which 
had been a key GOC objective.  On April 11, the article 
passed the House and Senate First Committees with little 
debate.  During earlier debates, Senator Rafael Pardo and his 
supporters had argued that article 2 should be replaced with 
article 8 from their rival draft, which acknowledged the 
existence of an "armed conflict." 
 
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Article 20: "Conexidad" Removed 
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3. (C) Article 20 allows the Superior District Court to 
combine all legal proceedings against a beneficiary into one 
case.  The original article was entitled "connectivity and 
accumulation of proceedings and punishments."  Several 
Congressmen had complained that the term "connectivity" would 
have allowed beneficiaries to claim that their major crimes, 
including drug trafficking, were connected to their 
pardonable crimes and therefore blocked from extradition. 
GOC ally Representative Roberto Camacho proposed new text 
that removed the term "connectivity" and stated that the 
combination of proceedings was for procedural reasons only. 
The article's new text was approved. 
 
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Article 64: Pardon But No Political Crimes 
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4. (C) Article 64 was rejected.  It had said that belonging 
to a paramilitary group was an act of sedition, and that 
sedition was a political crime and would carry the same 
punishment as rebellion against the state.  According to the 
current criminal code, paramilitarism is a common crime and 
insurgency (guerrilla groups) is a political crime.  Common 
crimes are not pardonable under Law 782.  The GOC had claimed 
that the article was needed to give paramilitaries and 
guerrillas equal treatment under Law 782.  Some claimed that 
allowing membership in a paramilitary group to be a political 
crime would enable paramilitaries to claim that drug 
trafficking was also a political crime and therefore not 
extraditable. 
5. (C) On April 12, an alternative article was approved.  It 
states that demobilized persons can be pardoned for 
conspiracy to commit a crime, illegal carrying of arms, 
illegal use of uniforms or insignias, and other benefits in 
article 343 of the normal criminal code.  Article 343 states 
that the jail term for acts of terrorism is ten to 15 years, 
but specifies that the sentence for intimidating or 
threatening via telephone, tape, video, or anonymous letters 
is two to five years.  Minister of Interior and Justice Sabas 
Pretelt announced publicly that the GOC was satisfied with 
the new article, but that they would bring up the issue of 
sedition again in the plenary. 
 
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Article 67: Time Frame 
---------------------- 
 
6. (C) Article 67 specifies the law's time frame.  Crimes 
committed after the bill becomes law will not be eligible for 
alternative sentences.  For example, if an IAG demobilized 
after the bill became law, the members would only benefit for 
crimes they had committed before the law went in effect.  A 
proposal to expand this time limit will be debated in the 
plenary. 
 
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Three New Articles 
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7. (C) Three new articles were approved: 
 
-- The GOC and the Prosecutor General's Office will allocate 
sufficient funds for the application of the asset forfeiture 
law. 
 
-- The GOC will enroll demobilized persons in psychological 
counseling and education or employment projects. 
 
-- The magistrates of the Superior District Court who are 
responsible for the Law of Justice and Peace will be elected 
by the Supreme Court from a list of nominations provided by 
the Administrative Chamber of the Superior Council. 
 
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Rejected Articles 
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8. (C) Two newly proposed articles were rejected, primarily 
on the grounds of redundancy: 
 
-- Demobilized persons cannot continue committing crimes or 
move to conflict areas.  If they do so, they lose all 
benefits.  Senator Pardo was one of the drafters of this 
proposal. 
 
-- Once the peace process with the United Self Defense Forces 
of Colombia (AUC) or other IAGs becomes active, they cannot 
continue conducting private justice, kidnapping, terrorism, 
extorsion, intimidation, or spreading the conflict. 
Reinsertion programs cannot be used for criminal activity. 
 
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Plenary Next 
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9. (C) There will be a minimum eight calendar day waiting 
period until the debates can begin in the House and Senate 
plenaries.  During these debates, Congressional rules state 
the plenaries cannot introduce changes that are radically 
different from the text approved in Committee or that were 
not debated in Committee (a somewhat subjective standard). 
This regulation provides for some flexibility, but if the 
plenaries attempt to make major changes the law risks being 
nullified by the Constitutional Court on procedural grounds. 
(Although the Justice and Peace Law is normal legislation and 
will not automatically be cleared by the Constitutional 
Court, individual lawsuites against the law can bring it to 
the Court.) 
 
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Comment 
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10. (C) The changes to article 20 and the elimination of 
article 64 provide added safeguards for our ability to 
extradite drug traffickers. 
WOOD