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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