Colombia OKs Weak Extradition Law

Defying the United States’ wrath and the threat of sanctions, the Chamber of Representatives gave final approval Tuesday to a watered-down extradition bill that will exempt the world’s most powerful drug traffickers from facing trial abroad.

Passage of the weak law--approved by a 119-38 vote--eliminates any realistic chance that the United States will remove Colombia from the list of pariah nations that are not doing their share in the fight against drugs.

And that, in turn, increases fears that, as a punishment, the United States will impose economic sanctions on this country’s exports.

The measure, passed by the Colombian Senate in mid-September, repeals a 1991 constitutional ban on extradition. That prohibition infuriated U.S. officials eager to prosecute the heads of the Cali drug cartel when they were arrested starting two years ago.

But the finished law--influenced by months of drug cartel lobbying, bribery and death threats--still keeps the drug lords out of U.S. hands.

No Colombian may be extradited for crimes committed before the new law was passed. This virtually guarantees that the heads of the Cali cartel, who once controlled the U.S. cocaine market, will serve less than 15 years in Colombian jails rather than life terms in the United States.

Foreign Minister Maria Emma Mejia left no doubt that President Ernesto Samper will sign the bill into law.

“Even if we didn’t get what we wanted, we have an extradition bill, and that is a great advance from what we had yesterday and a great asset in the drug war,” she said.

But critics described the new law as a feeble attempt to please both the Americans and drug traffickers, “lighting one candle for God and another for the devil,” as one observer said.

“I don’t believe this government has the will to extradite Colombian citizens,” said Enrique Parejo, a former justice minister and anti-drug crusader. “I am convinced that the president and many members of Congress have received drug money and promised in return not to push through an effective bill.”

Colombia’s exporters fear that the consequences could be devastating for them.

Each year, the U.S. president “certifies” which of the 31 major drug source or transit countries are fully cooperating in the international war against narcotics.

For the past two years, Colombia has been the only electoral democracy among the nations “decertified,” causing it to lose some U.S. financial aid.

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U.S. officials have shunned Colombia chiefly because of overwhelming evidence that Samper, who has denied any wrongdoing and was cleared in a Colombian congressional probe that was widely denounced, received $6.2 million from the Cali cartel for his 1994 presidential campaign.

Colombians had hoped that passage of tough new laws against money laundering and making it easier to confiscate the property of drug lords would win them American certification.

But U.S. officials made it clear that they also needed a strong extradition law.

The National Council of Business Groups, the nation’s major business organization, fears that as Colombia is decertified for the third year in a row, the U.S. Congress will radically increase pressure for economic sanctions to punish the country.

Exporters worry that Colombia will face more sanctions in 1998 that will cost those who export flowers, leather and textiles hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Colombia has lost its opportunity to show the world a clear commitment against transnational crimes, including drug trafficking,” said Miguel Gomez, the president of the National Assn. of Flower Exporters, whose members sent about $400 million in flowers to the United States last year.

Gomez said the flower exporters will go to Washington next week to try to persuade the State Department, members of the U.S. Congress and other officials that it would be “unfair to punish honest sectors of the economy for the damage done by drug traffickers.”