by JONATHAN LEVINSON
On Aug. 26, 2007, Olga Lucia Castillo’s two daughters went into the Zona Rosa in Melgar, Colombia, to buy food. Her younger daughter, 10 years old at the time, returned home alone. She told her mom that her older sister, age 12, disappeared with two men. The men, a U.S. Army sergeant and U.S. government contractor, allegedly took Castillo’s daughter to Colombia’s German Olano air force base, where they drugged and raped her.
“Sometimes,” Castillo told Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper, “it’s better to die than to run away. But I cannot die until I find justice for my daughter, for me.”
Castillo has fought for justice ever since but has been met with intimidation by Colombian security services and locals sympathetic to the government. She and her family ultimately left Melgar. Her daughter has attempted suicide three times since the assault.
Colombia’s prosecutor confirmed that the girl was sexually assaulted and issued arrest warrants for both men. But under the U.S.-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement, both men enjoyed diplomatic immunity and were immediately repatriated to the United States.
Status of forces agreements (SOFA), like the one that effectively freed the two men, establish the rights of foreign militaries operating in host nations. For the U.S., that typically includes some form of immunity for crimes committed as part of a service member’s official duty, with jurisdiction falling under U.S. courts. In most countries soldiers may be prosecuted by the host nation for crimes committed against non-SOFA personnel outside official duty. In Colombia, however, U.S. soldiers enjoy full diplomatic immunity, meaning they cannot be prosecuted under Colombian law and may only be expelled from the country.
These arrangements often lead to tensions with host countries. In 2001, after five years of painstaking negotiations, the United States and South Korea signed a revised SOFA. Jurisdiction proved one of the more contentious issues: South Korean citizens have long bristled at what they perceive as a violation of South Korean sovereignty, and despite expanded South Korean jurisdiction in the new SOFA, their frustrations surface every time a U.S. service member commits a crime, such as the 2002 incident in which two 14-year-old girls were killed by a U.S. Army bridge-laying vehicle. Under the SOFA the incident fell under U.S. military jurisdiction and was ruled an accident, and the soldiers involved were found not guilty of negligent homicide. South Koreans were furious.
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