TRAFFICKERS-TURNED-'PARAS' FIND WAY TO FOIL EXTRADITION

The Colombian Government Is Getting Criticized For Admitting Drug
Traffickers Into The Paramilitary Peace Process

Some 32,000 illegal paramilitary fighters have surrendered and their
top leaders are in custody. But the Colombian government now finds
itself on the defensive about the peace talks with the so-called
paras, amid complaints that top drug traffickers infiltrated the
paramilitaries to avoid extradition to U.S. courts.

"It's a farce," said one longtime U.S. government investigator of
drug trafficking in Colombia whose agency's regulations do not allow
him to be further identified. "Some of these guys were never
paramilitaries before."

Drug traffickers have been trying to push their way into the peace
process since the talks began in 2004, hoping to win protection under
an amnesty law that exempts paras from extradition and long jail
sentences at home.

But now those maneuvers are being highlighted by the cases of four
alleged members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC:
Jhonny Cano, Victor Mejia, Francisco Zuluaga and Juan Carlos Sierra.

Cano was the latest to slip into the peace process through the back
door. He was a lieutenant for Hernando Gomez -- an alleged drug
trafficker from the North Valley Cartel now jailed in Cuba -- before
he was captured last October. On Aug. 15, the government OK'd his
extradition to the United States but late last month his name suddenly
appeared on the list of paramilitary leaders protected from
extradition.

According to the government, Cano is on the list because he
"contracted the AUC to protect him." The government refused to
elaborate, saying only that it had passed the case on to prosecutors
so they could determine Cano's status.

The explanation has not satisfied everyone.

"We're very worried that the government says they don't have the
information to determine whether this person was a paramilitary," the
chief observer of the peace process for the Organization of American
States, Sergio Caramana, told The Miami Herald. "This is very
troubling."

The other three men, also wanted by U.S. authorities on drug charges,
were well known in the Colombian underworld before declaring
themselves AUC members.

The talks have succeeded in demobilizing most of the once-feared AUC
units and have led to the surrender of nearly 32,000 fighters -- more
than the 15,000 the AUC was believed to have before the talks began.

But criticism persists because of the government's erratic decisions.
At first, the government excluded Sierra and Mejia from the
extradition protection -- even while it accepted Zuluaga and Mejia's
twin brother, Miguel Angel. But in August the two turned up as
paramilitary leaders who will also enjoy benefits under an amnesty
deal.

Colombia's government defends its actions by arguing that paramilitary
activities and drug smuggling were simply too tightly linked for years
to now be separated.

"I think this concept of drug trafficker dressed up as para or para
dressed up as drug trafficker is not adequate," chief government
peace negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo told the El Tiempo newspaper.
"Paramilitarism was articulated through drug trafficking, because
drug trafficking gave it the resources it needed for its armed actions."

President Alvaro Uribe has extradited 380 suspected drug traffickers
to the United States, far more than any of his predecessors. In part
because of this record, Washington has continued to support the peace
talks with the AUC despite its apparent flaws.

Last week, the U.S. government donated another $1.9 million to support
the demobilization process -- even while it insists that Colombia must
extradite the suspected traffickers participating in it.

"When we ask for someone in extradition, we mean it," an embassy
spokesperson who did not want to be identified because of the
sensitivity of the matter told The Miami Herald. "We continue to talk
to the government about the cases not yet finally approved."

Distinguishing between paramilitaries and drug traffickers has never
been easy in Colombia, home to both Latin America's longest-running
guerrilla war and the largest producers of cocaine and heroin.

Legal "self-defense" groups began in the early 1980s as a response
by landowners, businessmen and the army to the kidnappings and
extortions by left-wing rebels in rural areas. Drug traffickers
eventually began co-opting some of the groups, and the government
outlawed them.

In the late-1990s, the paramilitaries reemerged alongside an increase
in guerrilla attacks and began a notoriously brutal campaign of
executions of thousands of people they suspected of being leftist
rebels or sympathizers.

Their best-known leader, Carlos Castano, gave interviews in which he
admitted that the groups got up to 70 percent of their financing from
drug money to fight against the guerrillas -- who also use drug money
to fill their coffers -- but denied the AUC was dominated by drug
traffickers.

Castano's denials soon fell apart, however, as major alleged
traffickers such as Hernan Giraldo, Diego Murillo and Carlos Mario
Jimenez challenged his leadership of the AUC. Others, such as
Salvatore Mancuso, Rodrigo Tovar and Ramiro Vanoy, began as
paramilitaries but allegedly later drifted toward trafficking.

Castano's older brother, Vicente, was also known as a suspected
trafficker and eventually sided with the traffickers in a dispute with
his brother over who controlled the organization.

In 2002, the U.S. government indicted Carlos Castano, Mancuso and
Sierra for trafficking 17 tons of cocaine to Florida. U.S. prosecutors
also indicted Vicente Castano, Murillo, the Mejia twins, Zuluaga,
Giraldo, Tovar and Vanoy.

In all, eight of the top paramilitary leaders negotiating with the
government face U.S. indictments for drug trafficking.

"The whole peace process seems like it's a way for these guys to
escape years of drug trafficking and murder," said one of the U.S.
investigators.

Throughout the negotiations with the AUC, the government has argued
that Colombia is better off without the paramilitaries in the field
and with their leaders in custody.

"What should be a scandal here is that the AUC, allied with drug
traffickers, has grown into a monster. This is a national disgrace,"
peace negotiator Restrepo told El Tiempo.

Herald special correspondent Jenny Carolina Gonzalez contributed to
this report from Colombia.