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Yolanda de Zakzuk

Aventura, FL. 33 180

March 17,2008

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman10100 Pines Blvd.

Pembroke Pines, FL 33026

Phone: 954-437-3936

Fax: 954-437-4776

Dear Congresswoman,

We write to you in the knowledge that a woman like you, who has witnessed

injustice, old and new, at home and by state-backed oppressors abroad, will

understand the magnitude of the destruction wrought upon our family.

We are not only the victims of corruption on the part of the Colombian government

but of the United Sates government as well, through the acts of its Agents in the US

Customs Service. (Please see attached FOIA request, still unanswered, and the

complaint which will be filed in US District court) My husband's career on the sea

starts as a fatherless 10 year old boy trying to support a sick mother and smaller

brother by joining the crew of a wooden cargo boat in 1936 and by 21 he was the

Captain of the ship. We were a legitimate enterprise for 30 years before Congress

legislated into existence the war on drugs, and all of the tragedies which have

befallen our family can be traced back directly to Congress' Acts. What do we

mean? We mean that for a five year period my husband pro-actively involved

himself in furthering the drug sting operations dreamt up by US Customs AgentVictor Thompson, and the men under his command, capture and prosecute tons of

cocaine and dozens of narcotraffickers and every single time we did that we created

more and more enemies. We even saved a US Customs undercover Agent, who was

posted to fictitious duties aboard our ship, just like all three of our ships had US

Customs undercover agents running stings against narcotraffickers and US

government transponders enabling the US government to track the movements of

our ships, when it was discovered by narcotraffickers that he was a US informant he

showed up on our doorstep in the middle of the night, one step ahead of assassins,

and again who saves him at our peril?

We were the tip of your lance in your stated goals in 1988:

"(5) the Federal Government civilian agencies engaged in drug interdiction,

particularly the

United States Customs Service and the Coast Guard, currently lackthe aircraft,

ships, radar,

command, control, communications, and intelligence (C31) system, and manpower


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resources

necessary to mount a comprehensive attack on the narcotics traffickers who

threaten the United States;"

But globally, the consequences of creating the war on drugs manifested itself even

before we started assisting US Customs in the shape of exorbitant fines levied uponus for sailors sneaking on board cocaine. We instituted a host of countermeasures

which included paying our ship officers twice the going rate to insure their integrity,

we had an agreement with Colombian port authorities which allowed us to file fake

destination reports to throw off drug dealers stalking our ships, we had Colombian

Police search our ships before leaving port, all our Captains were under orders to

search in international waters and confiscate and/or arrest suspected drugs and

drugtraffickers. We turned over to US Customs any sailors

apprehended with drugs, as well as to Colombian authorities, but the power of drug

money had them free on the streets sooner than we thought possible and again

more enemies. We had bodyguards for close to 15 years provided by the Colombian

National Police and by the Army once (Colombian Army General Eduardo Plata, my

husband's golfing friend); this time span is almost exactly how long our enterprise

lasted under the black market conditions created by the Acts of the US Congress.

My husband suffered two assassination attempts and was tortured for throwing

narcotrafficker's cocaine into the sea in May of 1987 after sneaking back in to

Colombia to oversee our enterprise. This is from El Heraldo, Barranquilla,

Colombia's, leading newspaper recording the incident.


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If you look closely at the group of people in this picture, in our home's back yard,

you can see Roy Apel, the State Department's US Consul.


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This, Madame Congresswoman, is the situation Congress has put us in and it is the

evidence we would have provided a Federal Judge had US Customs Agent Victor

Thompson not canceled our visas two weeks after I personally called to insult him,

thereby violating our Due Process rights and our Human Rights.

We believe that there are good people in Congress who will not allow so much

injustice to stand, and as we believe you are one of them, we respectfully request

that you contact the Colombian Embassy on our behalf if only to point out that:

a.) That the amount of time between decisions by the different levels of courts is
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii255/zaknick/09-1.jpg


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unacceptable because it dates our case to the point where the key witnesses (and

victims)

are dead and records gone or hard to find; in effect denying us justice . We could

have

taken the Colombian government to an international tribunal had they not corrupted

theprocess by delaying 25 years. And it is not because the Colombian courts always

take

this long, our case is probably the oldest; they had a semi functional judiciary

except

were their political patrons were the defendants, as in our case.

b.) Why has the legal mechanism known as conciliation, legislated into existence by

the

Colombian Congress (Decree 1214, 29th of June, 2000), and in wide practice

throughout

Colombia, not been applied to this case which clearly fits their stated target cases:

resolving the oldest cases thereby clearing up the docket backlog?

Colombian government website for Conciliation: http://www.conciliacion.gov.co/

c.) Firmly state that it's time this case is resolved.

d.) We leave up to you what real help you are willing to go through with for we

believe the

previous points, if brought up, will be ignored with lots of letters and no action.

We would also like to ask that your office appraise Speaker Pelosi's, and the rest of

the Democratic leadership, who can, with one word to the Colombian Embassy,

bring this family a bit of justice and prevent other looming negative consequences.

Ms. Bettyanne Gallagher suggested going through the State Dept., and while this

would also be appreciated, the only locale and moment to obtain closure to this

continuing abuse is in Washington DC, and at this juncture. Fifty years of my

husband's honorable hard work was destroyed by the Acts of Congress; we have no

resources to fight with. We believe it would worthy of the highest principles

espoused by the founding fathers of this country, beautiful and majestic

even, if Congress itself would help right the wrongs we have suffered.We will be in Washington on the first week of April to seek an audience with Speaker

Pelosi and other national Congressional leaders, and, should you agree, would like

to meet with you as well.

Sincerely,

Yolanda de Zakzuk


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On behalf of her children and grandchildren (all US and Colombian citizens born

here)

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Publications

Year 1998 Paper 4

Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden

Economic Agenda

Eric Blumenson

BA, Wesleyan University;JD, Harvard University

Eva S. Nilsen

B.A. magna cum laude, Yale University

J.D., University of Virginia

LL.M., Georgetown University

Abstract

During the 25 years of its existence, the "War on Drugs" has transformed the

criminal justice system, to the point where the imperatives of drug law enforcement

now drive many of the broader legislative, law enforcement, and corrections

policies in counterproductive ways. One significant impetus for this transf6ation

has been the enactment of forfeiture laws which allow law enforcement agencies

to keep the lion's share of the drug-related assets they seize. This financial

incentive has left many law enforcement agencies dependent on drug law

enforcement to meet their budgetary requirements, at the expense of alternative

goals such as the investigation and prosecution of non-drug crimes, crime

prevention strategies, and drug education and treatment. In this article we present

a legal and empirical

analysis of these laws and their consequences. The empirical data show that thecorruption of law enforcement priorities and wholesale miscarriages of justice

can be attributed to the operation of these incentives, and also help explain why the

drug war continues with such heavy emphasis on law enforcement and

incarceration.

The legal analysis questions the constitutionality of the forfeiture funding


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scheme under the due process clause, the appropriations clause, and the separation

of powers.

yozak wasserman with pics final

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