12) NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN COLOMBIAN REPRESSION CASES
Based on reports by W. T. Whitney, Jr. and files from the Popular Tribune website of the Communist Party of Venezuela
The jailing in Colombia of Swedish journalist Joaquin Perez Becerra stands as a heavy indictment of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and of a Colombian regime notorious for terrible class-based repression, a Red scare of titanic dimensions, and a major role as imperialist enabler in Latin America.
Joaquin Perez Becerra landed in a Bogota prison on April 25. The director of the left-oriented Anncol website (News Agency for the New Colombia) in Sweden had flown from Europe to Caracas two days earlier. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez complied with the request of Colombia counterpart Juan Manuel Santos that Perez Becerra be seized and delivered to Colombia. Santos indicated that INTERPOL had issued a "Red Notification" on Perez Becerra, whom Colombian sources say acted as a European agent for the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Joaquin Perez Becerra was serving as city councillor in Corinto, Valle del Cauca, when he fled to Sweden in 1993 to save his life. He gained political asylum the following year and Swedish citizenship in 2000. Despite his having given up Colombian citizenship, Venezuelan and Colombian officials dealing with Perez refer to him as Colombian. They have refused to allow lawyers and Swedish councillor officials to visit him.
Perez Becerra had gained office as a candidate of the Patriotic Union (UP) electoral coalition, formed by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) insurgents, communists, and others who entered electoral politics in 1985. By 1993, when Perez' first wife was murdered, UP candidates were winning victories, but others among them and elected officials were being killed, mostly by paramilitaries. The continuing massacre has taken 5000 lives.
Joaquin Perez Becerra's fate has triggered a flood of protests. For many, President Chavez' action signifies complicity with the Colombian regime's excesses. The journalist's capture and detention, they say, betokens continued persecution of UP activists.
In a May 3 article on its Popular Tribune website, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) maintains that the seizing and delivery of Joaquin Perez Becerra to the Colombian government was "illegal and politically misguided."
On April 24, a group of leaders of the PCV, Venezuelan political personalities, and lawyers went to the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service to monitor compliance with international and Venezuelan law in this case.
The delegation found that "the detained journalist was being kept incommunicado from family members and his lawyers, in violation of the national Constitution. Nor was consular notification allowed, which is established in international treaties for citizens of other nationalities." A habeas corpus plea by the lawyers for the prisoner's release was denied by a judge.
On April 30, President Chavez said that he "gave the order because Perez Becerra was being sought by INTERPOL" and that "The only alternative that I had was to deliver him to the government that wanted him."
But as the PCV points out, INTERPOL's official website indicates that any "Red Notification" should be accompanied "by a petition that the person being sought be detained for the sake of extradition," not immediately handed over. Further, the Venezuelan Penal Code states that "extradition of a foreigner cannot be conceded for political crimes" and that such a request must be decided by the country's Supreme Judicial Tribunal.
Other sections of the Penal Code spell out the necessary processes of oral hearings and appeals, and the right of detainees to effective judicial protection.
Further, the UN Convention on the status of refugees, of which Venezuela is a signatory, explicitly says that "No contracting state may, when expelling or returning a foreigner, place a refugee inside frontiers of territories where his life or liberty is, in any way, in danger."
Despite their sharp criticism of this case, the Politbureau of the Venezuelan Communist Party stresses that they "recognize and value highly" the leadership of President Hugo Chavez to the Venezuelan people and the world revolutionary movement.
Meanwhile, the main "evidence" used by the Colombian state in its persecution of a wide range of opponents may be nullified. In an astonishing development, Colombia's Supreme Court of Justice has disqualified "archives" from laptop computers said to belong to assassinated FARC guerrilla chief Raul Reyes. As a result of the Court's May 19 decision, judicial processes based on these archives may collapse.
Reyes was killed when his encampment was bombed on March 1, 2008, 1.7 miles inside Ecuadorian territory. After Colombian planes launched several missiles at the camp, a fleet of Blackhawk helicopters fired rockets and machine guns. Special forces contingents then killed several wounded guerrillas, and four Mexican students. The fact that the laptops "survived" the bombardment that killed 25 guerrillas has been seriously questioned by experts. But the logic behind the Court decision is that the three laptops and USB memories remained in the power of special forces commandos over three subsequent days, and not in the hands of the judicial police.
Ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos (now president), delivered copies of the computer disks to the British Center for Strategic Studies. This Institute, know to have ex-CIA agents within its leadership, quickly claimed that the laptops showed that Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa had direct ties with FARC guerrillas.
INTERPOL's own investigation found that more than 48,000 archives on the computers had been removed, transferred, changed, or erased. Several archives were dated 2014 and other years.
Further, Raul Reyes' supposed computer files are not emails, but are Word Office documents, as attested to by an army captain two years ago. These Word documents were accepted by a judge in the judicial process against Joaquin Perez Becerra.
The May 19 ruling halted the investigation of Wilson Borja, a former Congress member of the Alternative Democratic Pole (Polo). Borja had allegedly maintained ties with the FARC, an accusation based on the tainted "evidence" in the Reyes laptops. If the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court takes effect more widely, Perez Becerra could be released, and other legal actions against "FARC-politica" prisoners may collapse. The ruling may affect the case of Senator Piedad Cordoba, a peace and human rights activist who was expelled from Colombia's Congress after accusations that the computers "proved" her collaboration with the FARC.
(The above article is from the June 16-30, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)