Reuters/Bogota/Havana
A breakthrough in talks between Colombia’s government and Marxist guerrillas has raised hopes for a peace deal within six months and it may mean rebel leaders will avoid being extradited to face drug trafficking charges in the US.
President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) rebel group agreed on Wednesday to create special courts to try former combatants including guerrillas and also vowed to sign a peace deal by March to end five decades of war.
The thorny issue of extradition has not been resolved, however.
Sergio Jaramillo, the government’s peace commissioner, said the conditions under which rebels could be extradited will not be defined until the final peace deal is reached and he suggested the Farc would not agree to it.
“No one participates in a peace process and supports an agreement only to end up extradited, that’s obvious,” Jaramillo told a news conference in the Cuban capital Havana, where the sides have been negotiating.
“But it’s also obvious that they have to complete the conditions, some rules of the game, and that is what the final accord will contain.”
The US government backed the agreement reached this week, with Secretary of State John Kerry calling it “historic progress.”
Washington has spent billions of dollars on its anti-drugs efforts in Colombia, which is by some measures the world’s top cocaine producer. Its military aid helped weaken the Farc, pushing it to the negotiating table.
Rebels, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries have all opposed extradition, which typically means long sentences far from their families and fewer opportunities to bribe officials for perks.
One of the US targets is Farc leader Rodrigo Londono, better known as “Timochenko”, who shared a historic handshake with Santos at the talks in Havana on Wednesday.
The state department alleges Londono was involved in the manufacture and smuggling of hundreds of tonnes of cocaine and is offering $5mn for information leading to his arrest.
Other rebel negotiators at the talks also appear on the US Treasury Department’s Kingpin List of major drug traffickers and many face charges in Colombia. Several Farc members are already serving sentences in the US.
The deal on justice agreed on Wednesday would set up special courts to try the worst crimes of the war, from sexual abuse and kidnapping to torture and executions, but it also includes sharply reduced sentences for those who admit guilt.
Any peace deal must be approved in a referendum. While most Colombians are anxious for an end to a war that has killed some 220,000 people and forced millions from their homes, many fear former Farc rebels will join organised crime gangs.