Colombia Seeks Rebels on Drug Counts

Colombian prosecutors Friday charged top Marxist rebels with drug trafficking, a move that could make it easier to extradite them to the United States if they are caught but could also complicate any future peace talks.

Prosecutors believe one of the main reasons for the recent spectacular growth of the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has been income from the cocaine trade.

The prosecution called for a trial of Manuel Marulanda, the veteran leader of the FARC, and his deputy Jorge Briceno.

Marulanda, a leathery faced peasant about 70 years old, helped form the guerrilla army 39 years ago. Briceno is said by security forces to be the FARC’s military commander.

Colombia’s military has long referred to the FARC as “narco-terrorists,” but the guerrillas deny that they traffic cocaine, admitting only to “taxing” producers.

Washington has put the FARC on its list of terrorist organizations and in November indicted Briceno on charges of conspiring to import cocaine to the United States.

Colombia has a policy of extraditing drug lords to the more secure prisons of the U.S.

But authorities would first have to catch Marulanda, who has been on the run for most of his long life, and Briceno. Despite decades of trying, Colombian security forces have never arrested a top FARC commander.

There is also the possibility that charges against them could one day be dropped or bypassed as part of any future peace deal.

The government admits that some sort of amnesty would have to be considered for rebels if they ever agreed to peace, although negotiations are a remote possibility.

Colombian authorities said they seized evidence of the FARC’s involvement in drugs in the jungle near the borders with Venezuela and Brazil in 2001, when they captured Brazilian drug lord Luiz Fernando da Costa, known by the nickname “Fernandinho Beira Mar” (Freddy Seashore).