On Oct. 10, the trial of Simon Trinidad, also known as Ricardo Palmera, began in federal court in Washington, D.C. Palmera, lead negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), was captured in Quito, Ecuador, and later extradited to the United States in December 2004.
Palmera is charged with conspiracy to commit a kidnapping in connection with the FARC-EP’s capture of three U.S.
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Two men, a Colombian military official and a U.S. contractor, died in the crash and the three were taken prisoner. Palmera is also being charged with giving material support to a terrorist organization.
The prosecution’s case is extremely weak. Even the capitalist media has admitted this. The U.S. government is relying on the testimony of one of the prisoner’s mother, Colombian journalists, and the Colombian National Police—a highly corrupt organization under investigation in numerous cases for fraud and conspiracy in Colombia—to prove that Palmera is a member of the FARC-EP.
James Hathaway, who is in charge of the Colombia program for California Microwave Systems, a firm with contracts for the Pentagon, is an important witness for the prosecution. Hathaway admitted in court on Oct.17 that the information-gathering flights in Colombia have produced information later used in attacks on the FARC-EP. In 2001, information about an advancing column of FARC-EP guerrillas was transmitted to the U.S. embassy and then to the Colombian military.
The defense has stated that Palmera is, in reality, a prisoner of war with rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Palmera has been held under very restricted conditions. According to a press release from the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera, Palmera is not allowed to meet with his Colombian lawyer without FBI presence. The U.S. government also chose who would be his legal representative in court.
The real purpose of the trial is to legitimize Washington’s phony claim that the FARC-EP is a “terrorist” organization and set a precedent for further trials of Colombian citizens in U.S. federal court. The U.S. government has charged 50 alleged FARC-EP members with drug trafficking and is offering rewards for their capture.
This trial is being carried out in the context of a much larger war waged by the U.S. and Colombian governments against the people of Colombia and their revolutionary organizations. Washington has given the right-wing Colombian government over $4 billion since 2000 to expand and modernize the Colombian military’s repressive apparatus. There are currently 1,400 U.S. personnel directing, training and participating in Colombia’s civil war.
While the U.S.-supported Colombian state targets unions, student groups, Indigenous people and others, its main target is the FARC-EP. The FARC-EP is a revolutionary Marxist organization that controls over 40 percent of Colombia. It enjoys wide popular support, particularly from Colombia’s oppressed and impoverished peasantry.
The Colombian people’s struggle has been a decisive obstacle in the way of U.S. imperialism’s agenda in Colombia and greater South America.
The U.S. government hopes that carrying out this show trial will increase pressure on the FARC-EP and undermine the people’s struggle in Colombia—something that the ruling classes in the United States and Colombia have so far been unable to accomplish.
