BRAZIL GRANTS ASYLUM TO FARC TERRORIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRASILIA 001511


E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/27/2016
TAGS: PTER PREL PGOV MARR BR CO
SUBJECT: BRAZIL GRANTS ASYLUM TO FARC TERRORIST

REF: BRASILIA 719

Classified By: PolCouns Dennis Hearne, 1.4 (B) and (D)


1. This is an action cable. Please see paragraph 10 for
action request.


2. (C) Summary: The Colombian government has called on
Brazil to reverse a July 14 decision to grant asylum to
wanted FARC terrorist Francisco Antonio Cadena. Some media
in Brazil greeted the decision with speculation that the
judicial asylum process was subverted by President Lula da
Silva and elements of his Workers Party, who maintained close
ties with FARC leader Cadena, who lived in Brazil before his
arrest last year and who has a minor child with his Brazilian
wife. The Colombian Embassy in Brasilia will meet July 28
with the head of the Brazilian refugee committee which
granted the asylum request, apparently on the strength of a
written statement by Cadena promising to sever all ties with
the Colombian terrorist group, the FARC. The granting of
asylum to a known terrorist flies in the face of Brazilian
claims to oppose international terrorism. Particularly
troubling are the allegations of the Presidency subverting
the judicial process and pressuring the refugee committee to
take a decision contrary to its own guidelines, allegations
we find credible. We, like the Colombians, will try to
discover the official rationale for the decision and how the
GOB reconciles it with its public opposition to international
terrorism. We would also appreciate instructions on other
actions, if any, we should be taking. End Summary.


3. (C) In a decision taken and kept in secret, the Brazilian
National Committee on Refuges (CONARE) July 14 granted
political refugee status to Francisco Antonio Cadena Collazos
(known in Brazil as Olivera Medina),the so-called Ambassador
to Brazil of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia),who was arrested in Brazil in August 2005 at the
request of Interpol, based on a Colombian arrest warrant
which included charges of murder for terrorist purposes,
kidnapping, extortion and terrorism. The decision will make
it impossible for Cadena to be extradited to Colombia as the
Colombian government requested on August 24, 2005 (reftel).


4. (C) In a statement issued July 19 in Bogota, the
Colombian government requested the Brazilian government to
reconsider the decision to grant asylum to Cadena and
reiterated its previous request for his extradition. The
Political Counselor of the Colombian Embassy in Brasilia,
Juan Manuel Gonzalez Ayerbe, pointed out to poloff July 27
that CONARE guidelines preclude the granting of asylum to
persons who have committed war crimes or crimes against peace
or humanity, heinous crimes or acts of terrorism or drug
trafficking. Gonzalez added that, aside from providing an
official notification of the decision through its Embassy in
Bogota, the GOB had made no comment on the case to the
Colombians and had not provided an official explanation of
the decision. Gonzalez said that one of his contacts at the
Brazilian Foreign Ministry had told him unofficially that
Cadena had signed a statement saying he would cut all ties
with the FARC, and that CONARE had made its decision on that
basis.


5. (C) Gonzalez said the Colombia Embassy would meet July 28
with Luis Paulo Barreto, the General Secretary of the
Ministry of Justice, who serves as the chair of CONARE, to
seek a full explanation and to reiterate its request that
asylum be revoked and extradition proceed. CONARE's other
members include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs
(Vice-Chair),Labor, Health, Education, the Federal Police,
UNHCR and NGO's from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The press
spokesman of the CONARE told the Embassy July 27 that all
CONARE documents are confidential; there are no public
records or press releases concerning decisions, neither are
decisions published in the official government gazette. The
rationale behind the secrecy is that persons requesting
refugee status are assumed to be in danger, so their names
cannot be released to the public.


6. (C) An article in the July 27 edition of the daily
newspaper Correio Brasiliense repeated the claim made to the
Colombian Embassy that the decision by CONARE was taken on
account of Cadena's commitment to cease terrorist activities
and quotes him as saying he will devote all his efforts from
now on to taking care of his Brazilian family. The article
notes that the Justice Ministry had denied there had been
political pressure concerning the decision and gave
assurances that the decision was taken for technical reasons.
That claim is at variance with what Correio reported in
April (reftel).


7. (C) At that time, the daily reported that CONARE members
were complaining that the Office of the Presidency had
usurped the role of CONARE in assessing Cadena's asylum
request, calling the action a dangerous precedent that
politicized an issue that should be handled on its legal and
technical merits. CONARE members accused Presidential
International Affairs Advisor Marcos Aurelio Garcia of being
behind the transfer of authority over the extradition request
from the Foreign Ministry to the Office of the Presidency
(The Colombian Ambassador echoed that view to the Charge,
adding that Garcia was known to have "sympathy" for the
FARC). An advisor to Garcia rejected the charge, saying
Garcia was not involved in the issue.


8. (C) Counselor Gonzalez raised Garcia's name during our
July 27 meeting as a key player in the decision-making
process. He added that, during the many years Cadena spent
in Brazil prior to his arrest last year, he had cultivated
close ties with President Lula's Labor Party (PT) and had met
with leaders of the PT in a house just outside of Brasilia
(called the Red Heart Mansion) owned by a PT member of
Congress . He also echoed press and other public accounts
that PT leaders had met with Cadena in prison. While
pointing out that claims of FARC donations to PT campaigns
had never been proven, he insisted there was ample proof of
Cadena's ties with PT leaders.


9. (C) Comment: The decision by the Brazilian committee is
audacious but not necessarily surprising, as is the near
silence surrounding it. Aside from a few articles in the
Brazilian press, there has been little notice of the decision
and no statements from Brazilian leftists (including those
who have run a web site in support of his asylum claim) or
the FARC itself. Of course, the GOB's silence on the issue
is not surprising. Granting refugee status to a man accused
of terrorism against a friendly, democratically elected
government of a neighboring country is hardly the thing
President Lula or his associates would be eager to defend
publicly, especially since it would inevitably result during
this election period in a new airing of the claims of FARC
support for PT 2002 campaigns, possibly including Lula's.
Embassy believes that high level political pressure resulted
in this decision.


10. (C) Action Request: We, like the Colombians, will be
trying to find out what the official rationale for the asylum
decision was and how that can be reconciled with the GOB's
supposed opposition to international terrorism. We would
also appreciate instructions from Washington regarding other
actions we should be taking.

Chicola