Letters revive scandal of alleged campaign financing of narcos

Pastrana: The FARC have to go out to do politics and not hide (2018) 5:39

(CNN Spanish) -

In Colombia there is a public controversy over the confrontation between two old political enemies: former presidents Ernesto Samper (Liberal Party) and Andrés Pastrana (Conservative Party).

It all started after, on August 31, Pastrana appeared voluntarily and at his own request before the so-called Truth Commission, a body created within the framework of the peace agreement signed on November 24, 2016 between the government of then-President Juan Manuel Santos and the demobilized FARC guerrilla, and which seeks to establish the origins and responsibilities of armed and civilian actors in the internal conflict that lasted more than 50 years.

There, former President Pastrana -among several statements about his vision of the country's historical and political context- gave the priest Francisco De Roux a letter signed by the brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, currently convicted and imprisoned for drug trafficking in a prison in the United States. , in which the former bosses of the so-called Cali Cartel maintain that they gave money in 1994 to the presidential campaign of the then presidential candidate Ernesto Samper.

Archive image.

Gustavo Bell (left), then Minister of Defense of Colombia, accompanies President Andrés Pastrana in a press conference on the security measures that would be taken prior to the 2002 presidential elections. (Credit: Getty Images)

In the letter that Pastrana attributes to the Rodríguez Orejuela family, dated June 12, 2000, the signatories maintain that “although it is true, that at some point in our lives we made the mistake of contributing to Dr. ERNESTO SAMPER PIZANO and his immediate collaborators, with the money for their presidential campaign, it was NOT behind their backs, much less behind the backs of the campaign managers, as they proclaim in public squares ”.

Pastrana kept the letter during all this time and only revealed its content before the Truth Commission as a “historical record,” according to what he said in his public appearance.

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That same day, on his Twitter account, former President Samper affirmed that he does not recognize Andrés Pastrana of any moral authority.

The scandal of the so-called 8 thousand process - as it was known at the time to some audio recordings revealed by Pastrana, in which telephone conversations between interlocutors of the so-called Cali Cartel and the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers were heard, talking about the alleged financing of drug trafficking to Ernesto Samper's campaign— it once again occupied the front pages of newspapers and was a trend on social networks.

Twenty-five years later, the fight between former political rivals continues.

Despite the fact that the Accusations Commission of the House of Representatives (the legislative body in charge in Colombia of investigating and trying former presidents) acquitted Samper at the time, the same did not happen with several of his closest collaborators in the campaign and in the government, who were prosecuted and found guilty of having received money from drug trafficking, including former ministers, former prosecutors, former comptrollers and even congressmen, who were splattered by one of the largest corruption scandals in the country's history.

A new chapter in controversy

This Tuesday, the controversy had a new chapter.

In a letter published by Blu Radio, the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers attack former President Pastrana because, according to them, the letter he delivered to the Truth Commission was the result of an alleged blackmail in exchange for not extraditing them to the United States.

CNN has not been able to verify the veracity of this letter and is trying to contact the Rodríguez Orejuela or their representatives in the United States.

"Mr. Former President, you forgot to tell the Truth Commission about your criminal participation in the so-called Dragacol and Chambacú contracts, where you were the head of that criminal conspiracy to defraud the State out of several million dollars," the former chiefs maintain. of the Cali Cartel in the letter published this Tuesday.

Dragacol and Chambacú were two notorious corruption scandals in Colombia in which some former officials of the Pastrana government were involved.

It involved cost overruns in the dredging of a sector of the Magdalena River and the irregular dispossession of properties in Cartagena from an Afro-descendant community.

The cases were investigated for years by the Prosecutor's Office but the former president was never linked to any criminal or disciplinary process for these cases.

"We make this statement because this is the result of the letter resulting from your blackmail, the origin of this scandal that you presented in the Truth Commission," added Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela.

Once the letter was known, former President Samper spoke again on Twitter and stated: “I am surprised by the explosive statements of the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers about the unworthy behavior of former President Andrés Pastrana when setting up, as President of the Republic, a criminal entrapment against Horacio Serpa and against me for denouncing the serious corruption cases of the Dragacol and Chambacú times ”.

Archive image.

Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper greets before the presentation of the book "Lula, the truth will win" by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff during the Buenos Aires International Book Fair, on May 1, 2018. (Credit: Juan Mabromata / AFP / Getty Images)

Samper also added in his statement on the social network that Pastrana has to explain to “the judicial authorities, including the Attorney General's Office and the Accusations Commission of the House of Representatives, must undertake the investigation of the serious events denounced.

The country has the right to know the truth that former President Pastrana tried to hide in his unusual presentation at the Truth Commission ”.

This Wednesday, Pastrana responded to a letter from the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers in which they made serious claims of financing their presidential campaign in 1998.

"In 1994 I had the courage to denounce the entry of drug trafficking money into Samper's campaign, revealing the so-called 'narcocassetes', the queen's test of the 8000 process. That is why I was persecuted by that government and many compatriots called me stateless for having spoken with the truth, "says Pastrana in the statement to public opinion.

"My campaign in 1994 was handled in the most neat manner by Luis Alberto Moreno, Hernán Beltz and Claudia de Francisco, about whom there is not a single doubt about their honesty and who have never been investigated for ties to drug trafficking," he says. the ex-president.

The truth is that all these accusations from side to side put one of the darkest and most shameful episodes of politics in Colombia once again in the sights of public opinion.

Many investigations, including those of the so-called 8 thousand process, have already been archived, others have been closed. Some of its main protagonists were convicted, others have died and several were acquitted. Now, the Truth Commission has in its hands the historical responsibility of giving a final version as rigorous as possible on this and other issues in the recent history of Colombia, which have marked the political reality, drug trafficking and the armed conflict.