( Spanish) — In 1992, the United States government offered a US$2 million reward for information that would lead to the capture of Pablo Escobar, the then head of the Medellín Cartel, one of the most feared and bloodthirsty drug lords who at that time sowed terror in Colombia. This would be the first of several terrorist designations of both individuals and criminal groups in that country by the Department of State and the Department of Justice.
In the case of Pablo Escobar, his violent actions against the State and the civilian population, in his attempt to stop the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States, motivated this decision by Washington. The hundreds of victims of this Escobar war, including judges, journalists, police officers and defenseless citizens, led the authorities to consider him one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world.
A picture taken on September 6, 1989 from Colombian television shows a wanted ad for Medellin cartel leaders Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodríguez. Credit: CARLOS LEMA/AFP via Getty Images
With his inclusion on the terrorist list, Escobar began to lose his economic power, his assets were confiscated, his family was denied a visa to enter the US, and finally the persecution of the capo ended with his death on the 2nd. December 1993. With this, one of the most violent chapters in the history of Colombia culminated.
In the year 2000, during the government of President Andrés Pastrana, the so-called “Plan Colombia” for the war against drugs was established. It was an initiative of the Bill Clinton administration to increase the fight against drug trafficking and armed groups in the country and thus reduce the shipment of narcotics to the United States.
US President Bill Clinton (right) and Colombian President Andrés Pastrana after a joint press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on October 28. The two presidents promised to redouble their efforts in the fight against drug trafficking. Credit: STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP via Getty Images
A year later, in 2001, the list of groups considered to be terrorists was expanded. The United States included the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) among the organizations that sowed terror in Colombia. After a peace process, the AUC demobilized between 2005 and 2006 during the government of Álvaro Uribe. In 2008 most of its top bosses, including Salvatore Mancuso, were extradited to the US. Subsequently, the State Department also excluded them from the list.
Salvatore Mancuso, leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), speaks to the press at the Campo Dos camp in Tibú, in the department of Norte de Santander, on December 9, 2004. Credit: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
In 1997, the guerrilla group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had been declared a terrorist by the State Department. According to the US authorities, in addition to the kidnappings, extortions, murders and attacks against the infrastructure, this organization, which declared itself to be on the left, was involved in drug trafficking.
In 2021, and after the peace agreement between the Colombian government and that guerrilla signed in 2016, Washington stopped considering it as a terrorist. The FARC became the Comunes political party.
At the time, the inclusion of the FARC in that list also allowed the monitoring and seizure of many of its illicit assets and the targeting and persecution of front men and collaborators of that armed group. Several of their bosses, such as alias Simón Trinidad, were captured and extradited to the United States.
Colombian soldiers protect Ricardo Palmera, known by the alias Simón Trinidad, a senior rebel leader and former peace negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on January 3, 2003, upon his arrival in Bogota. Trinidad was sentenced on January 28, 2008 in the United States to 60 years in prison for his role in the kidnappings of three US citizens. Credit: GERARDO GOMEZ/AFP via Getty Images
The so-called FARC dissidents remain on the list of terrorists; factions of that guerrilla that did not sign the agreement and that did not agree with the agreement and continued committing crimes.
The ELN guerrilla, which is currently carrying out a peace process with the Colombian government, has been included in the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union since 2004.
In most cases, the inclusion of individuals or Colombian armed organizations on the terrorist list has been related to the alleged links to drug trafficking and the violent activities that this generates. And that has translated into technical support, military, judicial and economic assistance from the United States in the fight against these criminal structures.
A new approach in the fight against drug trafficking
President Gustavo Petro maintains, however, that it is time to rethink the war on drugs that has prevailed in recent decades in Colombia.
“The war against drugs has failed. The fight against the climate crisis has failed. Deadly consumption has increased, soft drugs have gone to harder ones, a genocide has taken place on my continent and in my country, they have condemned jails millions of people, to hide their own social guilt they have blamed the Jungle and its plants. They have filled speeches and politics with no reason,” said the president in the plenary session of the Assembly of Nations United in September 2022.
Currently, the Congress of the Republic is processing a law of submission to justice for drug traffickers and criminal gangs that would allow for more benign penal treatment, including reduced sentences for those who voluntarily turn themselves in to the authorities. In this way, they would have the possibility of keeping a percentage of their illicit assets in exchange for effective collaboration and reparation for the victims. The commitment of non-repetition and the clarification of the truth of the crimes committed could also mean non-extradition for those who submit to justice.
All of this, in addition to the peace talks with the ELN and the FARC dissidents, and the bilateral ceasefire declarations with illegal armed groups, are part of the so-called “Total Peace” policy of the current government. A controversial initiative that has been questioned by political parties of the political opposition and sectors of opinion contrary to the Executive.
“Total peace cannot be converted into total impunity,” former President Iván Duque has said in various forums and public pronouncements, referring to the government initiative.
