FARC a terrorist organization? ...apparently not.

juancegomez says on Dec 13, 2007, 09:29:

Just posted this in another topic, btw. The BBC article has more details.

Although I have to say that there are two separate cases here:

The one with the T-shirts (which went to trial with its rather illogical result) and the one about a separate donation from the Wood, Industry and Building Workers union (which is new, and actually the main subject of the article you've posted and the recent Colombian protest).

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Mr. Hollywood says on Dec 13, 2007, 09:32:

Christ, what is up with these Danes?

They've got a nice, windy socialist monarchy with virtually no crime and hot, sexually liberated women and they want to mess with it by expressing solidarity with pricks like the FARC?

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billyb says on Dec 13, 2007, 09:46:

Fok Denmark.

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static says on Dec 13, 2007, 11:38:

What a bunch of naive maroons!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7142569.stm

On the BBC story, there is a chance to add your thoughts to the decision.

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scotty says on Dec 14, 2007, 01:06:

im kinda surprised at this, i really never expected the danes to pull something stupid like this.

wasnt it the Danes that recently had some comic strips in their newspapers about the muslims and the muslims were all up in arms against the Danes?

Get Rhythm, when you got the blues. Johnny Cash

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vladimiro says on Dec 14, 2007, 20:22:

There might be a Colombian exile community, including former Patriotic Union members, giving them a different perspective on the conflict. I imagine thousands of victims of the brutal crackdowns on leftists, union members, and opposition movements escaped to Europe.

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billyb says on Dec 14, 2007, 20:30:

"giving them a different perspective on the conflict"

Different perspective? Oh, I get it, like telling the Danes that lobbing gas cylinders into a church full of cowering women and children is not really terrorism? Just a bunch of teenagers roughhousing?

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 14, 2007, 20:39:

"Different perspective? Oh, I get it,"

Billyb: That's the definition of a knee-jerk response. You may want to consider what UP exiles have to say. I disagree with what the most radical of them say, which is most clearly expressed in Anncol, but many of them make valid points about the internal conflict--after all, they've lived it in their own flesh. But I can happily disagree with them because I've read and heard at least some of what they have to say.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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billyb says on Dec 14, 2007, 20:48:

But what they say is really besides the point, unless you are saying that the FARC is justified in commiting these acts as form of revenge. If you go down that road, then you can also justify some of the Para's atrocities because many were in response to acts commited by the FARC and where does that end? An atrocity is an atrocity is an atrocity and no amount of ideological spin, right or left, can change that.

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juancegomez says on Dec 15, 2007, 08:19:

vladimiro: While I can understand what SrTertius is saying, I have to agree with billyb in that this isn't really a matter of so-called "different perspectives", in the end, but of actions.

This was not a discussion about the Colombian state, UP people, exiles or whatever else you want to bring up, but a matter of current FARC activities and their implications.

Even in the most oppressive or murderous state in the history of the world (which Colombia is certainly not, by all means, but that's not the point anyways), I would still find it quite repugnant for people to provide significant or symbolic support to any organization like FARC, especially with the kind of (ignorant and inaccurate, no matter what "perspective" you assume if that means leaving out facts) arguments the Danish T-shirt vendors are employing.

Like I just wrote in the other topic:

"The thing is, even if you leave the entire "terrorism" issue and its vague implications out of this for the sake of simplicity, providing (significant or symbolic amounts of) money to kidnappers and murderers is hardly any better... it's still quite repugnant even in the absence of "universal jurisdiction", if that's the concept SrTertius is looking for.

Indeed, there's a need for better judicial cooperation, but I believe we still have the right to be angry in the meanwhile, at the verdict, the defendants and even the prosecution or the Colombian embassy for that matter."

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 15, 2007, 08:40:

The problem, billy, is that you are reducing the conflict to a FARC-government confrontation, and you know it is much more complicated than that. The atrocities committed by FARC have no excuse or justification, regardless of what is said. But what people exiled because of the war may provide is a larger perspective, one that, if played well by some lawyers, may put FARC out of counter-terrorism legislation in Europe.

That's the problem with these judicial proceedings: Ideally, people are convicted on the basis of fact, not of ideology. Not only in Europe. In the US, the trial against Simon Trinidad almost backfired against the Col and US governments when the question was raised of whether FARC was a political organization involved in an internal conflict and the actions of ST corresponded to his membership to FARC. The law has, for better or worse, its own logic. If we want the law to work for us, to make sure that those fokers that were selling shirts for FARC end up in jail, we need more than just getting indignant. We need the Col government to (1) clean up its act: If International Humanitarian Law becomes the rule, FARC supporters would be in trouble, but so would be the Col government; (2) show that it is cleaning up its act, and (3) establish cooperative relations with EU, US, and the rest of the world to get the guys who provide more substantial support to FARC: druglords, weapon dealers, money launderers, etc. The problem is that some of those supporters may be part of our government institutions, as suggested by Petro in the farcopolitica debate. Colombia has a long way to be able to point fingers to other people before having to point it at itself.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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billyb says on Dec 15, 2007, 10:01:

T, I am not denying the complexity of the conflict, but for the purpose of this particular discussion, all those aspects are irrelevant, because the point was that the Danish judges didn't see anything particularly terroristic about putting a car bomb on the garage of a crowded club and killing 39 people or lobbing gas cylinders into a crowded church and killng 119 mainly women and children. And my problem, along with that of others here, is what were they thinking? Now are there colombians living abroad that have legitimate grievances against the governament? Yes, of course, but like I said before, that has nothing to do with what most intelligent people believe constitutes a terrorist act.

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vladimiro says on Dec 15, 2007, 10:06:

I think the ability of an opposition group like the FARC to operate in another country (raising money, and spreading propaganda) has more to do with politics than law. Its certainly got nothing to do with morality, because no doubt the FARC will be taken off the terror listing at some point.

I was guessing that there might be a Colombian exile community, like ex UP, affecting the politically motivated trial against the t-shirt sellers because I am aware of how such a community affects decisions in the US.

The MKO is on the US State Department's terror list. When they were trying to overthrow the Shah they killed many Americans, some top US military officials, and nearly assassinated Nixon in Iran.

But the MKO now has a press office near the White House, raises hundreds of thousands in LAX airport from the 1 million strong Iranian exile community in Los Angeles, and the FOX News MidEast analyst is Ali Jafari one of the leaders of the MKO terrorist cult.

I think this terrorist organization is tolerated in the US in part from the different perspective the US press and government get from the Iranian exile community, many of whom were victims of the mullahs or are trying to gain power.

Which is not unlike the ex UP guys running ANNCOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran

http://www.anncol.nu/

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 15, 2007, 10:52:

Billy: I think that instead of blaming the Danes, who may be too busy with their own stuff, we must ask, was the Colombian government doing anything to push the case for terrorism in the Danish court? Did they provide evidence to the prosecutors? As I said, I have no idea about this process, so they might have and the Danes chose to ignore it. That'll suck ass. But the most likely scenario was that prosecution didn't have the evidence, begged the Colombian embassy for evidence to substantiate terrorism charges, but they were either on an extended holiday or singing villancicos, or too busy dealing with the son of a politico who got appointed in Copenhagen because daddy helped Uribe with something and the kid is a moron.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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billyb says on Dec 15, 2007, 10:56:

That could very well be true, but how long would it have taken them to google the info they needed, if they had taken the case seriously, which in the end is our point.

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 15, 2007, 11:01:

I don't think googled information counts for a lot in a court of law, even in Denmark.

To me the point is how can Colombia stop people from passing money to FARC, even if it is just US$5000. How can Colombia help criminalize material support to FARC. That's something on which Colombia has to take the initiative, instead of waiting for the Danes or the Namibians or whoever to take our case seriously.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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gatogris says on Dec 15, 2007, 11:45:

Excellent comment by vladimiro - the tactics of these groups has up untill now had very little impact on public or legal opinion. Examples abound in recent years, with groups like PKO, the Northern Alliance, the Shiite militias all having perpetrated horrible atrocities and all having exacted legitimacy from European and North American states who are ostensibly signatories to international human rights laws and treaties.

But for an earlier example, lets look at China in the early 1930s - before Mao came to power, he had deal with internal dissent, and he did so first by systematic suppression. Later, the suppressions were turned into bloody physical elimination. It is well documented that horrible forms of torture and killing took place. Victims were subjected to a red-hot gun-rod being rammed into the anus, and that there were many cases of cutting open the stomach and scooping out the heart. Women and children, families of the offenders, were especially targeted. The estimated number of those slaughtered could be as high as 186,000 Through the so-called revolutionary terrorism, Mao's authority and domination became unchallenged.

And this is a guy who even Kissinger kissed his ass.

I wouldn't look for a court remedy for a terrorist group that isn't actively engaged in a struggle against the danes themselves. At least not until international law grows some balls, and is no longer applied arbitrarily.

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billyb says on Dec 15, 2007, 14:40:

"How can Colombia help criminalize material support to FARC."

It is already against Danish law (Has nothing to do with Colombian law) to materially support the FARC, that is not the point, the pointis that they chose not to enforce it. Admisable or not, googling the FARC would have given those morons posing as judges all the info they would have needed to determine that they indeed are a terrorist organization, not only by EU designation, but y their very actions.

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 15, 2007, 16:30:

Billy: If the information cannot be used as evidence, you don't have a case, period. What is against Danish law, as I understand, is to provide material support to terrorist organizations. Even though FARC is in the EU list, it may be necessary to provide evidence for prosecution.

The law was clearly enforced, since these people were arrested. I don't know if prosecution did a poor job or what, but I haven't heard of any support provided by the Colombian government in the prosecution of these people, have you?

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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billyb says on Dec 15, 2007, 21:34:

Precisely, they could have googled FARC, seen the items about El Nogal and Boyaja, said to themselves, "wow this is fucked up shit they are doing here if true, let's look into it further", simple.

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Sr Tertius says on Dec 15, 2007, 22:26:

You are right billy, I wonder why that didn't occur to them.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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vladimiro says on Dec 16, 2007, 00:53:

Usually you are lucky If a judge reads all the documents that are put before him by the lawyers. For a judge to look up anything on his own is beyond the question in most cases. They only evaluate the information presented to them by the lawyers.

I'm not familiar with Danish law, but I believe that in common law systems the actual laws or legal statutes don't hold much weight in court because language is not precise enough and can be interpreted in varying ways and circumstances arise that were not considered when the law was originally written. (for instance, remember Clinton testifying that it all depends on what the word is is )

In court, its case law or the results of previously tried cases that judges use to make their decisions.

Atleast in common law systems, the lawyers would have had to Google case law, and find cases like previously convicted terrorist t-shirt vendors or they wouldn't have had much of a case.

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slguy says on Dec 16, 2007, 14:49:

exactly, vlad. I'm shocked- but I have to agree with you. ;)

Before you throw me out, make sure I pay my bar tab

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