News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman Page A
Authors: Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman
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concerned the time limits for the crimes that judges would have to consider. This meant that no crime committed after the issuing date of the decree would be protected. The secretary general of the presidency, Fabio Villegas, who was the most lucid opponent of time limits, based his position on a cogent argument: When the period of pardonableoffenses ended, the government would have no policy. The majority, however, agreed with the president that for the moment they should not extend the time limits because of the certain risk that this would become a license for lawbreakers to continue breaking the law until they decided to turn themselves in.
To protect the government from any suspicion of illegal or unethical negotiations, Gaviriaand Giraldo Angel agreed not to meet with any direct emissary from the Extraditables while the trials were in progress, and not to negotiate any question of lawwith them or with anyone else. In other words, they would not discuss principles but only procedural matters. The national head of Criminal Investigation—who is not dependent on or appointed by the chief executive—would be the officialin charge of communicating with the Extraditables or their legal representatives. All exchanges would be written and, therefore, on record.
The proposed decree was discussed with an intensity and secrecy that are in no way usual in Colombia, and was approved on September 5, 1990. This was Decree 2047 under Martial Law: Those who surrendered and confessed to their crimes could receive the rightnot to be extradited; those who confessed and also cooperated with the authorities would have their sentences reduced, up to a third for surrender and confession, up to a sixth for providing information—in short, up to half of the sentence imposed for one or all the crimes for which extradition had been requested. It was law in its simplest, purest form: the gallows and the club. The same Councilof Ministers that signed the decree rejected three extradition requests and approved three others, a kind of public announcement that the new government would view non-extradition only as a privilege granted under the decree.
In reality, rather than an isolated decree, this was part of a well-defined presidential policy for fighting terrorism in general, not only narcoterrorism but common criminalacts as well. General Maza Márquez did not express to the Council on Security what he really thought of the decree, but some years later, in his campaign for the presidency, he censured it without mercy as “a fallacy of the times.” “With it the majesty of the law is demeaned,” he wrote, “and traditional respect for the penal code is undermined.”
The road was long and complex. The Extraditables—whicheveryone knew was a trade name for Pablo Escobar—rejected the decree out-of-hand while leaving doors open so they could continue to fight for much more. Their principal argument was that it did not state in an incontrovertible way that they would not be extradited. They also wanted to be considered as political offendersand therefore receive the same treatment as the M-19 guerrillas, who hadbeen pardoned and recognized as a political party. One of the M-19’s members was the minister of health, and all of them were participating in the campaign for the Constituent Assembly. Another concern of the Extraditables was the question of a secure prison where they would be safe from their enemies, and guarantees of protection for their families and followers.
It was said that the governmenthad issued the decree as a concession to the traffickers under the pressure of the abductions. In fact, it had been in the planning stage before Diana’s kidnapping, and had already been issued when the Extraditables tightened the vise with the almost simultaneous abductions of Francisco Santos and Marina Montoya. Later, when eight hostages were not enough to get them what they wanted, they tookMaruja Pachón and Beatriz Villamizar. That
To protect the government from any suspicion of illegal or unethical negotiations, Gaviriaand Giraldo Angel agreed not to meet with any direct emissary from the Extraditables while the trials were in progress, and not to negotiate any question of lawwith them or with anyone else. In other words, they would not discuss principles but only procedural matters. The national head of Criminal Investigation—who is not dependent on or appointed by the chief executive—would be the officialin charge of communicating with the Extraditables or their legal representatives. All exchanges would be written and, therefore, on record.
The proposed decree was discussed with an intensity and secrecy that are in no way usual in Colombia, and was approved on September 5, 1990. This was Decree 2047 under Martial Law: Those who surrendered and confessed to their crimes could receive the rightnot to be extradited; those who confessed and also cooperated with the authorities would have their sentences reduced, up to a third for surrender and confession, up to a sixth for providing information—in short, up to half of the sentence imposed for one or all the crimes for which extradition had been requested. It was law in its simplest, purest form: the gallows and the club. The same Councilof Ministers that signed the decree rejected three extradition requests and approved three others, a kind of public announcement that the new government would view non-extradition only as a privilege granted under the decree.
In reality, rather than an isolated decree, this was part of a well-defined presidential policy for fighting terrorism in general, not only narcoterrorism but common criminalacts as well. General Maza Márquez did not express to the Council on Security what he really thought of the decree, but some years later, in his campaign for the presidency, he censured it without mercy as “a fallacy of the times.” “With it the majesty of the law is demeaned,” he wrote, “and traditional respect for the penal code is undermined.”
The road was long and complex. The Extraditables—whicheveryone knew was a trade name for Pablo Escobar—rejected the decree out-of-hand while leaving doors open so they could continue to fight for much more. Their principal argument was that it did not state in an incontrovertible way that they would not be extradited. They also wanted to be considered as political offendersand therefore receive the same treatment as the M-19 guerrillas, who hadbeen pardoned and recognized as a political party. One of the M-19’s members was the minister of health, and all of them were participating in the campaign for the Constituent Assembly. Another concern of the Extraditables was the question of a secure prison where they would be safe from their enemies, and guarantees of protection for their families and followers.
It was said that the governmenthad issued the decree as a concession to the traffickers under the pressure of the abductions. In fact, it had been in the planning stage before Diana’s kidnapping, and had already been issued when the Extraditables tightened the vise with the almost simultaneous abductions of Francisco Santos and Marina Montoya. Later, when eight hostages were not enough to get them what they wanted, they tookMaruja Pachón and Beatriz Villamizar. That
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