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Right-wing paramilitarism in Colombia

December 02, 2023

Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia (Spanish: paramilitares de derecha) are paramilitary groups acting in opposition to revolutionary Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population. These right-wing paramilitary groups control a large majority of the illegal drug trade of cocaine and other substances. The Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups,[1] although the chief prosecutor of the ICC would contradict these numbers.[2]

The first paramilitary groups were organized by the Colombian military following recommendations made by U.S. military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia during the Cold War to combat leftist political activists and armed guerrilla groups. The development of more modern paramilitary groups has also involved elite landowners, drug traffickers, members of the security forces, politicians, civilians, and multinational corporations. Paramilitary violence today is principally targeted towards supposed left-wing insurgents and their supporters.

History edit

Plan Lazo edit

 
US General William P. Yarborough was the head of a counterinsurgency team sent to Colombia in 1962 by the US Special Warfare Center. Yarborough was one of the earliest proponents of "paramilitary [...] and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents"[3].

In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team", composed of counterinsurgency experts, to investigate Colombia's internal security situation. This was due to the increased prevalence of armed communist groups in rural Colombia which formed during and after La Violencia.[4] In February 1962, a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team, headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.[5]

In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists:

A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States."[6][7][8]

The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Among other policy recommendations, the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature."[4][8][9] It was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.[10]

Law 48 of 1968 edit

The first legal framework for the training of civilians by military or police forces for security purposes was formally established by the Colombian presidential decree 3398 of 1965, issued during a state of siege, which defined the defense of the nation as requiring "the organization and tasking of all of the residents of the country and its natural resources...to guarantee National Independence and institutional stability."[8] This decree temporarily allowed the formation of private security forces used to protect large landowners, cattle ranchers, and government officials.[8][11][12]

Decree 3398 was later succeeded by Law 48 of 1968, a piece of permanent legislation that gave the Colombian executive the power to establish civil patrols by decree and allowed the Defense Ministry to supply their members with military-grade weaponry.[8] Human Rights Watch has pointed out that "although few civil patrols were ever formally created by the president, the military frequently cited Law 48 as the legal foundation for their support for all paramilitaries."[8]

A series of Colombian military manuals from the 1960s encouraged the creation of paramilitary organizations to help fight guerrillas. In 1969, the Reglamento de EJC 3-10, Reservado, de 1969 ("EJC-3 Order, Restricted, 1969") stated that the armed forces should organize "self-defense committees" which were defined as "military-type organizations made up of civilian personnel in the combat zone, which are trained and equipped to undertake operations against guerrilla groups that threaten an area or to operate in coordination with combat troops".[13] These committees were to maintain contact with local military officers, keeping a high level awareness about any suspicious communist action in their communities, in particular those of suspected "guerrilla supporters". The manual also allowed military personnel to dress in civilian clothes when necessary to infiltrate areas of suspected guerrilla influence and for civilian helpers to travel alongside military units. Separately, in order to help gain the trust of local citizens, the military was advised to participate in the daily activities of the community where and when applicable.[8]

Triple A edit

Not to be confused with Argentine Anticommunist Alliance.

Between 1978 and 1979, an alleged far-right paramilitary organization known as the American Anti-Communist Alliance (also AAA or Triple A) started a terror campaign against Colombian communists, which included bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. It was later revealed that the organization had direct links to the Colombian National Army. Contemporary accusations and declassified U.S. Embassy documents have linked the creation and operation to the "Charry Solano" Battalion of Intelligence and Counter-intelligence (BINCI) that employed the Triple A name as a covert name.[14][15]

The rise of paramilitaries edit

That they try to present me as an associate of the guerrilla ... hurts my personal dignity ... I am a man of investments and therefore I cannot sympathize with the guerrillas who fight against property.

Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin Cartel[16]

In the late 1970s, the illegal cocaine trade took off and became a major source of profit. By 1982, cocaine surpassed coffee as a national export, making up 30% of all Colombian exports. Many members of the new class of wealthy drug barons began purchasing enormous quantities of land for a number of reasons: in order to launder their drug money and to gain social status among the traditional Colombian elite. By the late 1980s, drug traffickers were the largest landholders in Colombia and wielded immense political power. They raised private armies to fight off guerrillas who were trying to either redistribute their lands to local peasants, kidnap members of their family, or extract the gramaje tax that was commonly levied on landed elites.[17][18][19]

Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) edit

Between the end of 1981 and the beginning of 1982, members of the Medellín Cartel, the Colombian military, the U.S.-based corporation Texas Petroleum, the Colombian legislature, small industrialists, and wealthy cattle ranchers came together in a series of meetings in Puerto Boyacá, and formed a paramilitary organization known as Muerte a Secuestradores ("Death to Kidnappers", MAS). They formed this organization to defend their economic interests, to fight against the guerrillas, and to provide protection for local elites from kidnappings and extortion.[8][20][21] By 1983, Colombian internal affairs had registered 240 political killings by MAS death squads—mostly community leaders, elected officials, and farmers.[22]

Asociación Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio (ACDEGAM) edit

The following year, the Asociación Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio ("Association of Middle Magdalena Ranchers and Farmers", ACDEGAM) was created to handle both the logistics and the public relations of the organization and to provide a legal front for various paramilitary groups. ACDEGAM worked to promote anti-labor policies and threatened anyone involved with organizing for labor or peasants' rights. The threats were backed by the MAS, which would come in and attack or assassinate anyone who was suspected of being a "subversive".[8][23] ACDEGAM also built schools whose stated purpose was the creation of a "patriotic and anti-Communist" educational environment, built roads, bridges, and health clinics. Paramilitary recruiting, weapons storage, communications, propaganda, and medical services were all run out of ACDEGAM headquarters.[23][24]

By the mid-1980s, ACDEGAM and MAS had experienced significant growth. In 1985, the powerful drug traffickers Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa, and Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha began funneling large amounts of cash into the organization to pay for weaponry, equipment and training. Funding for social projects was cut and put towards strengthening the MAS. Modern battle rifles such as the Galil, HK G3, FN FAL, and AKM were purchased from the military and INDUMIL through drug-funded private sales. The organization had computers and ran a communications center that worked in coordination with the state telecommunications office. They had thirty pilots and an assortment of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. U.S., Israeli, British and Australian military instructors were hired to teach at paramilitary training centers.[8][21][23][24][25][26] According to the report by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad ("DAS", Colombia's Administrative Security Department), between December 1987 and May 1988, Rodríguez Gacha hired Israeli and British mercenaries to train teams of assassins at remote training camps in Colombia. Yair Klein, a retired Israeli lieutenant colonel, acknowledged having led a team of instructors in Puerto Boyacá in early 1988.[27]

Movimiento de Restauración Nacional (MORENA) edit

By the end of the 1980s, the MAS had a significant presence in 8 of Colombia's 32 departments—Antioquia, Boyacá, Caquetá, Córdoba, Cundinamarca, Meta, Putumayo, and Santander. During this period, a stated goal of the groups was to kill members of the Patriotic Union or any political groups that opposed drug trafficking.[8][23] At the same time, they began to intensively involve themselves in municipal, regional, and national politics. In August 1989, the Movimiento de Restauración Nacional ("Movement of National Restoration", MORENA) was formed by members of ACDEGAM.[28][29][30][31]

Critics of the MORENA experiment either saw it as an attempt at legitimizing paramilitarism and its abuses, as an extension of ACDEGAM, or as a copycat of El Salvador's ARENA.[citation needed]

The Castaño family and the ACCU edit

In the late 1970s, the FARC-EP began gathering intelligence on Don Jesús Castaño. A wealthy rancher in Segovia, Antioquia, far-right conservative, and influential local politician, Don Jesús was considered an ideal target for kidnapping. The Don was kidnapped in 1981, and ultimately died while in captivity.[11][32]

Don Jesús had several sons. The oldest of these, Fidel, had accumulated a fortune illegally smuggling emeralds, robbing, and trafficking cocaine and marijuana. By the 1980s, Fidel had become one of the most powerful mafia capos in the world, and had purchased large tracts of lands in northern Colombia. By 1988, he and his younger brother Carlos purchased over 1.2 million hectares of land in Antioquia, Córdoba, and Chocó.[11][33]

As a teenager, Carlos Castaño had worked as an informant for the Colombian army's Bomboná battalion, which had strong links to MAS death squads. He later worked as an assassin for the MAS, and was supplied with weapons by army officers. In 1983, Carlos went to Tel Aviv, Israel where he spent a year taking courses in paramilitary and counterinsurgency tactics.[19][32][34]

Los Tangueros edit

While Carlos was in Israel, Fidel hired a group of over 100 armed men, which began to terrorize the local populace. The thugs became known as Los Tangueros by the villagers after the name of the Castaño ranch, Las Tangas, where they were based. In 1983, under orders from Fidel, a group of men went through the villages near Segovia, where his father had been held, and killed every man, woman, and child living on the river nearby. They pulled babies out of their mothers arms and shot them, nailing one baby to a plank. They impaled a man on a bamboo pole, and hacked a woman to pieces with a machete. By the time they were done, 22 people were dead.[32][35]

By the late 1980s, numerous cattle ranchers in Córdoba were now supporting Fidel Castaño. Many of them had been forced to pay increasing amounts of extortion money to the EPL and other Communist guerrillas under the threat of kidnapping or having their ranches burned and their animals killed.[36] Widespread local mobilizations against the central government's peace initiatives, the guerrillas, and political movements thought to have their consent or approval, were organized under the leadership of the Colombian military and Fidel's group. Between 1988 and 1990, Colombian press sources reported almost 200 political murders and 400 suspected political assassinations in the region and official government figures suggested that a total of 1,200 of them took place in Córdoba during the period. Left-wing politicians received anonymous death threats and were frequently interrogated in army bases by the 11th Brigade.[36]

Foundation for the Peace of Córdoba edit

In 1990, Fidel Castaño offered to disband his paramilitary forces if the EPL agreed to demobilize. Having previously faced the combined pressure of Los Tangueros and the Colombian military, the guerrillas demobilized over 2,000 illegal combatants and founded the Hope, Peace, and Liberty party. Fidel surrendered some weapons to government authorities and created the Fundación por la Paz de Córdoba (Foundation for the Peace of Córdoba) which provided money, land, cattle and other support to hundreds of former EPL combatants. Electoral alliances between the new party, the AD/M19, and local right-wing politicians were established.[37][38]

After the demobilization, the Communist FARC-EP expanded its activities in Córdoba and clashes between them, a dissident EPL faction, and the demobilized guerrillas—some of which formed armed "popular commands"—led to almost 200 murders of former fighters and continued violence.[37][39] Carlos Castaño claimed that this was the reason he decided to reactivate his family's private army.[37][39]

Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Uraba (ACCU) edit

In 1994, Carlos took control of Los Tangueros, which officially changed their name to the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Uraba ("Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá", ACCU). The ACCU began working with regional military forces, such as the Bomboná battalion, to crush the guerrillas, and murder or intimidate anyone suspected of supporting them. The ACCU helped military commanders by providing intelligence regarding local guerrilla activities. The ACCU began networking with other paramilitary groups such as the MAS, and began to take over large areas of northern Colombia, which was the principal transnational shipping point for illegal drugs.[11][40]

Anti-Paramilitary Decrees of 1989 edit

In 1987, government statistics revealed that paramilitaries had been responsible for more civilian deaths than guerrillas deaths. Two years later, in 1989, the Colombian government under the administration of Virgilio Barco (1986–1990), passed a series of decrees that promised to reduce paramilitary violence.[41][42]

The first of the decrees, Decree 813, called for the creation of a commission to oversee the government's anti-paramilitary efforts. The commission was to include the Ministers of Government, Justice, and National Defense, along with the chiefs of the Army, National Police, and DAS. The commission was supposed to plan ways to cut down on paramilitary violence and oversee the execution of these plans.[42] However, most of the people in the commission had either openly voiced support for the paramilitaries or headed agencies with very strong ties to paramilitary groups, and the commission rarely met over the following decade.[41][43]

The second decree, Decree 814, established a 1,000 member anti-paramilitary police force that was made up of active-duty officers from the National Police.[42] The police force was mostly assigned to raiding drug laboratories and the offices of drug trafficking organizations, rather than confronting the paramilitaries directly.[41]

The third decree, Decree 815, suspended the Armed Forces's privilege to distribute weapons to armed civilian groups (a power which had been granted under Law 48 in 1968), and required any new armed civilian groups to be approved by the President and Ministers of Defense and Government. However, the government did not outlaw the already existing paramilitary groups or require that they be re-certified through the more stringent new standards.[41][42][44]

In 1989, the administration issued Decree 1194 which outlawed "the armed groups, misnamed paramilitary groups, that have been formed into death squads, bands of hired assassins, self-defense groups, or groups that carry out their own justice" after the murder of two judges and ten government investigators at La Rochela, Santander. The decree established criminal penalties for both civilians and members of the armed forces involved in the promotion, financing, training and membership of said groups.[37]

Armed Forces Directive No. 200-05/91 edit

In 1990, the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U.S. Embassy's Military Group, U.S. Southern Command, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to give advice on the reshaping of several of the Colombian military's local intelligence networks, ostensibly to aid the Colombian military in counter-narcotics efforts.[45] Advice was also solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence, but the U.S. proposals were ultimately selected by the Colombian military.[46]

The result of these meetings was Armed Forces Directive 200-05/91, issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in May 1991. The order itself made no mention of drugs or counter-narcotics operations at all, but instead focused exclusively on creating covert intelligence networks to combat the insurgency.[46]

Controversy Surrounding Directive edit

Human Rights Watch (HRW) concluded that these intelligence networks subsequently laid the groundwork for continuing an illegal, covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries. HRW argued that the restructuring process solidified linkages between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups, by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities.[citation needed] In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a "secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder".[45]

HRW argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses. HRW stated that the military intelligence networks created by the U.S. reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence, stating that the "recommendations were given despite the fact that some of the U.S. officials who collaborated with the team knew of the Colombian military's record of human rights abuses and its ongoing relations with paramilitaries".[45]

HRW stated that while "not all paramilitaries are intimate partners with the military", the existing partnership between paramilitaries and the Colombian military was "a sophisticated mechanism--in part supported by years of advice, training, weaponry, and official silence by the United States--that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it."[47]

As an example of increased violence and "dirty war" tactics, HRW cited a partnership between the Colombian Navy and the MAS, in Barrancabermeja where: "In partnership with MAS, the navy intelligence network set up in Barrancabermeja adopted as its goal not only the elimination of anyone perceived as supporting the guerrillas, but also members of the political opposition, journalists, trade unionists, and human rights workers, particularly if they investigated or criticized their terror tactics."[45]

Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar (Los Pepes) edit

Main article: Los Pepes
 
Man killed in Medellín by Los Pepes

In 1992 Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison, La Catedral. Shortly after, the Calí Cartel, dissidents within the Medellín Cartel, and the MAS worked together to create a new paramilitary organization known as Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar ("People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar", Los Pepes) with the purpose of tracking down and killing Pablo Escobar and his associates. The organization was led by Fidel Castaño.[48][49][50][51] The Calí Cartel provided $50 million to pay for weapons, informants, and assassins, with the hopes that they could wipe out their primary rival in the cocaine business.[52] Members of both Colombian and U.S. government agencies (including the DEA, CIA and State Department) provided intelligence to Los Pepes.[49]

Pablo Escobar complained about how the government targeted the Medellín Cartel, but did not go after paramilitaries or members of the Calí Cartel, saying:

Los Pepes have their torture chambers in Fidel Castaño's house [in Medellín], located ... near the country club ... There they torture trade unionists and lawyers. No one has searched their house or confiscated their assets ... The government offers rewards for the leaders of the Medellín Cartel and for the leaders of the guerrillas, but doesn't offer rewards for the leaders of the paramilitaries, nor for those of the Calí Cartel, authors of various car bombs in the city of Medellín.[53]

Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguriadad Privada (CONVIVIR) edit

During the 1990s, the FARC-EP and other guerrilla groups experienced significant growth and achieved a series of military successes against government forces, increasing the amount of territory under their control. The administration of President Ernesto Samper (1994–1998) carried out ineffective operations against the insurgency and attempted to enter into peace negotiations. Colombian military commanders resisted Samper's offer of a demilitarized zone in La Uribe, Meta Department meant to hold these talks. The FARC-EP leadership expressed initial interest in the administration's plan, but ultimately refused to accept any preconditions. The Samper administration was also seriously undermined it in the eyes of the guerillas after the scandal concerning the receipt of over $6 million in campaign from the Cali Cartel.[54][55][56][57]

In 1994, Decree 356 of Colombia's Ministry of Defense authorized the creation of legal paramilitary groups known as Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguriadad Privada ("Special vigilance and private security services"), also known as CONVIVIR groups. The CONVIVIR groups were intended to maintain control over high risk areas where guerrillas did not have a strong presence after having been expelled and where there was no need for a large military force or illegal paramilitary presence anymore. Many illegal paramilitary groups transitioned into legal CONVIVIR groups after this. These CONVIVIR groups worked alongside both the Colombian military and illegal paramilitary groups in counterinsurgency operations.[58]

The governor of Antioquia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez—who would later become President of Colombia—was one of the primary proponents of the CONVIVIR program.[59][60] Statistics regarding the exact number of CONVIVIR groups differ and have been considered hard to obtain.[61] Estimates indicate that, by the late 1990s, from 414 to over 500 of these groups had been created, with their membership ranging from 10,000 to 120,000. Uribe's department of Antioquia had some 65 CONVIVIR groups, one of the highest figures in the country.[60][61][62][63][64]

Amnesty International claims that the CONVIVIR groups committed numerous human rights abuses against civilians, working in coordination with the Colombian government and paramilitaries.[58] In 1998, Human Rights Watch stated that "we have received credible information that indicated that the CONVIVIR groups of the Middle Magdalena and of the southern Cesar regions were directed by known paramilitaries and had threatened to assassinate Colombians that were considered as guerrilla sympathizers or which rejected joining the cooperative groups".[65]

In November 1997, due to mounting concerns over human rights violations committed by CONVIVIR groups and the relations between illegal paramilitaries and CONVIVIR, the Constitutional Court of Colombia stated that the issue of military weaponry to civilians and specifically to CONVIVIR groups was unconstitutional,[58] and that CONVIVIR members could no longer be used to gather intelligence information.[37] Many of the CONVIVIR groups simply joined up with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).[58][66]

By the end of the decade, there had been a tenfold increase in the number of Colombian paramilitaries.[67]

The Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) edit

Main article: United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia

In April 1997, the creation of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) or AUC was announced, formally inaugurating what has been termed by analysts as the "second generation" of paramilitarism. It is considered to be the result of Carlos Castaño's efforts to achieve a measure of unity between most of the other paramilitary forces in the country. Several paramilitary groups did not join, but the AUC itself claimed to represent about 90% of existing forces at the time. Castaño's ACCU formally became the core of the new umbrella organization, while the other heads of paramilitary groups kept their own leadership positions, becoming part of a federated High Command of the AUC. It has been considered by observers that the FARC's advances as part of a 1996 to 1998 offensive eased the process of this formal paramilitary unification.[68]

As a response, the AUC engaged in a renewed series of massacres and assassinations, often with the passive or active aid of elements of the Colombian government's security forces, according to human rights organizations.[69]

2003-2006 demobilization process edit

In July 2003, the Uribe administration began formal negotiations with the AUC with the stated aim of seeking its demobilization. Law 975 of 2005, also known as the "Justice and Peace" law, was approved by the Colombian Congress and constituted the main legal framework applicable to those paramilitaries who had committed serious crimes.[70] The legislation gave AUC combatants broad concessions, such as allowing paramilitaries to keep profits made from criminal activities during their time in the AUC, limiting sentences to a maximum of 8 years which could be served on private farms instead of in prisons, and not obliging them to dismantle their power structures.[71][72]

Under the Colombian government's interpretation of Law 782 of 2002 and Decree 128 of 2003, the majority of the paramilitaries who submitted to the process were pardoned through the cessation of judicial procedures for charges related to their membership in the group. Only 3,700 of the paramilitaries applied for "Justice and Peace" benefits.[70]

The demobilization process was heavily criticized by national and international human rights organizations as well as by international entities,[73] such as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, citing its non-compliance with international standards on the rights of victims to seek justice and reparation and granting impunity to human rights violators.[74] Colombian congresswoman Gina Parody claimed that Law 975 gave "benefits to people who have committed the worst crimes"[71]

On May 18, 2006, the Constitutional Court of Colombia reviewed Law 975 of 2005, modifying and striking down several of its original articles and correcting some of the problems critics had identified. The revision requires full confessions, turning over illegally acquired assets, provides that reduced sentences may be revoked for lying and removes time limits on investigations. The Court also ruled against the option for paramilitaries to serve their sentences outside of prison or to deduct time spent during negotiations.[70]

In 2007 and 2008, paramilitary commanders provided useful information to prosecutors about their activities and associates. However, of some 1,800 individuals who began confessing their crimes to prosecutors in 2005, just 5 had completed their hearings by 2009. A limited number of assets worth an estimated US$5 million had been surrendered to the official reparations fund, but procedures for the return of stolen land to its original owners remained stagnant and paramilitary leaders extradited to the United States mostly ceased collaborations with authorities.[70]

Serious flaws during the demobilization phase, such as the Colombian government's failure to interrogate and verify the identities of those involved in the process, allowed many paramilitaries to remain active, form new successor groups, and continue to engage in human rights violations.[70]

In September 2006, Amnesty International said:[74]

Media reports suggest that over 30,000 paramilitaries have demobilized. However, paramilitaries in supposedly demobilized areas continue to operate, often under new names, and to commit violations. There is also strong evidence of continued links between paramilitaries and the security forces. There were also fears that government policies designed to reintegrate members of illegal armed groups into civilian life risked "recycling" them into the conflict.

In February 2010, Human Rights Watch said:[70]

The successor groups, though different in important respects from the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia [...] have taken on many of the same roles, often with some of the same personnel, in some cases with the same counterinsurgency objectives of the AUC [...] It is clear that many paramilitary combatants did in fact go through the demobilization process and abandoned their groups for good. However, there is substantial evidence that many others who participated in the demobilization process were stand-ins rather than paramilitaries, and that portions of the groups remained active. There is also evidence that members of the groups who supposedly demobilized continued engaging in illegal activities.

A 2010 United Nations report stated that:

The vast majority of paramilitaries responsible for human rights violations were demobilized without investigation, and many were effectively granted amnesties. Today, the failure in accountability is clear from the dramatic rise in killings by illegal armed groups composed largely of former paramilitaries.[75]

A December 2014 International Crisis Group report stated that:

...Demobilisation remained partial, as some stayed outside the process or went on to rearm, strongly contributing to the emergence of successor groups known as New Illegal Armed Groups (NAIGs). Their number has fallen from 32 in 2006 to three, but they still muster some 3,000 members often concentrated in regions with a strong paramilitary legacy such as Uraba, the Eastern Plains, the south-western departments or the Caribbean coast.

[76]

Reintegration of ex-paramilitary fighters edit

Since 2006, the Office of the High Counselor for Reintegration (ACR) has been in charge of the reintegration policy for demobilized AUC members. The ACR assists ex-combatants with education, vocational training, grants for micro-businesses, psychosocial support, healthcare and a monthly stipend dependent on the ex-combatants’ participation to reintegration activities. Of the 31,671 demobilized members of the AUC, 20,267 were actively participating in the reintegration program by the end of 2009. The others were either involved in the process of Justice and Peace, imprisoned due to infractions after their demobilization, dead, or had left the program for unknown reasons.[77][78]

Post-AUC successor criminal groups edit

New paramilitary groups and related drug trafficking gangs that have continued operating after the AUC demobilization process are referred to as bandas criminales (BACRIM) or criminal gangs by the Colombian government.[79] According to the Colombian National Police, these groups had 3,749 members by July 2010, while the NGO Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz estimated 6,000 active combatants..[80] Others estimate their ranks may include up to 10,000 people.[79][81]

Until 2011 Colombia remained the world's largest cocaine producer,[82] and since 2003, Human Rights Watch stated that according to their Colombian intelligence sources, "40 percent of the country's total cocaine exports" were controlled by these paramilitaries.[83][84][85][86][87] In 2011 an independent investigation, made by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, estimated that 50% of all Colombian cocaine was controlled by the same BACRIM groups.[88][89]

In the early 2010s, the Black Eagles, Los Rastrojos, Los Urabeños, Los Paisas, Los Machos, Renacer, Los Gaitanistas,[90] Nueva Generación, Bloque Meta, Libertadores del Vichada, the ERPAC, and The Office of Envigado comprised the dominant criminal and paramilitary organizations.[81]

There were originally over 30 BACRIM, but by late 2017, the number had been reduced to a handful as smaller groups have been absorbed by more powerful networks or dismantled by the security forces, leaving only Los Urabeños with a national presence.[91]

These successor groups are often made up of mid-level paramilitary commanders and criminal structures that either did not demobilize in the first place or were re-activated after the demobilizations had concluded.[80][81] Many demobilized paramilitaries received recruitment offers, were threatened into joining the new organizations, or have simultaneously rearmed and remained in government reintegration programs. New recruits have also come from traditional areas for paramilitary recruitment.[81]

BACRIMs continue to be involved in the drug trade, commit widespread human rights abuses, engage in forced displacement, and undermine democratic legitimacy in other ways—both in collusion with and opposition to FARC-EP guerrillas.[79][80][92] Their targets have included human rights defenders, labor unionists and victims of the former AUC. Members of government security forces have also been accused of tolerating their growth.[80][92]

Human rights violations edit

See also: White Terror

Right-wing paramilitary groups have been blamed for the vast majority of human rights violations in Colombia.[93] The United Nations has estimated that approximately 80% of all killings in Colombia's civil conflict have been committed by paramilitaries, 12% by leftist guerrillas, and the remaining 8% by government forces.[94] In 2005, Amnesty International stated that "the vast majority of non-combat politically-motivated killings, disappearances, and cases of torture have been carried out by army-backed paramilitaries".[13] In its 1999 report, Human Rights Watch cited estimates from Colombian human rights organizations CINEP and Justice and Peace, which indicated that paramilitary groups were responsible for about 73% of identifiable political murders during the first half of 1998, with guerrillas and state security forces being blamed for 17 and 10 percent respectively.[95] The Colombian Commission of Jurists reported that, in the year 2000, approximately 85% of political murders were committed by the paramilitaries and state forces.[96]

"[The AUC] mutilated bodies with chainsaws. They chained people to burning vehicles. They decapitated and rolled heads like soccer balls. They killed dozens at one time, including women and children. They buried people alive or hung them on meat hooks, carving them ... the victims ... were civilians accused of supporting the guerrillas by supplying them with food, medical supplies, or transportation."

Robin Kirk,[97] Human Rights Watch investigator in Colombia

Paramilitary violence is overwhelmingly targeted towards peasants, unionists, teachers, human rights workers, journalists and liberal / left wing political activists.[98][99]

Paramilitary abuses in Colombia are often classified as atrocities due to the brutality of their methods, including the torture, rape, incineration, decapitation and mutilation with chainsaws or machetes of dozens of their victims at a time, affecting civilians, women and children.[17][97][98]

Paramilitary forces in Colombia have additionally been charged with the illegal recruitment of children into the armed ranks. Though this is an offense punishable by national law, the prosecution rate for these crimes is less than 2% as of 2008.[100]

Many of these abuses have occurred with the knowledge and support of the Colombian security forces. A 1998 Human Rights Watch report stated:

... where paramilitaries have a pronounced presence, the army fails to move against them and tolerates their activity, including egregious violations of international humanitarian law; provides some paramilitary groups with intelligence used to carry out operations; and in other cases actively promotes and coordinates with paramilitary units, including joint maneuvers in which atrocities are the frequent result. ... In areas where paramilitaries are present, some police officers have been directly implicated in joint army-paramilitary actions or have supplied information to paramilitaries for their death lists. Police have also stood by while paramilitaries selected and killed their victims. On many occasions, police have publicly described whole communities as guerrillas or sympathetic to them and have withdrawn police protection, a violation of their responsibility under Colombian law to protect civilians from harm. Instead of reinforcing the police after guerrilla attacks, police commanders have withdrawn officers, thus encouraging or allowing paramilitaries to move in unimpeded and kill civilians.[37]

A 1999-human rights report from the U.S. State Department said:

At times the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses; in some instances, individual members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups by passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, and providing them with ammunition. Paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police, as well as local civilian elites in many areas.[101]

In 2006, Amnesty International reported that:

The security forces have tried to improve their human rights image by letting their paramilitary allies commit human rights violations and then denying that the paramilitaries are operating with their acquiescence, support or sometimes direct coordination.[74]

Massacres edit

Hundreds of massacres have been perpetrated by paramilitary groups in Colombia.

Each night they kill groups of five to six defenseless people, who are cruelly and monstrously massacred after being tortured. The screams of humble people are audible, begging for mercy and asking for help.

Judge Leonardo Iván Cortés, Mapiripán, Meta, July 1997[37]

Mapiripan Massacre edit

Main article: Mapiripán Massacre

In Mapiripán, Meta Department, an estimated 30 people were killed between July 14 to 20 1997. At least 100 heavily armed AUC members arrived in the town searching for people who were suspected leftist guerrilla supporters. They went from house to house referring to a list of names that had been prepared by informants earlier.

Civilians were taken to the town center where they were tortured by paramilitaries before being killed. After torturing their victims, the paramilitaries decapitated people with chainsaws, hung people from meat hooks, hacked people with machetes, cut people's throats and carved their bodies, and then threw their corpses into the nearby Guaviare River.[17][102][103]

The local judge of Mapiripan, Leonardo Ivan Cortes, called the police and the army eight times during the 5-day massacre, but they did not arrive until the AUC paramilitaries had left.[102] In March 1999, Colombian prosecutors accused Colonel Lino Sánchez of planning the massacre with Carlos Castaño. Sánchez was the operations chief of the Colombian Army's 12th Brigade. He had received special training by U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers on Barrancón Island on the Guaviare River. The training was finished very close to the time of the massacre.[104] The evidence showed that the paramilitaries landed unhampered at the San Jose del Guaviare airport, which was heavily guarded by military personnel.[103]

Alto Naya massacre edit

Another massacre took place at Alto Naya, Cauca department on April 12, 2001, in which an estimated 40-130 civilians were killed and thousands displaced. Approximately 100 paramilitaries from the Frente Calima ("Calima Front") participated in the killings.[105][106]

The first victim was a 17-year-old girl named Gladys Ipia whose head and hands were cut off with a chain saw. Next, six people were shot while eating at a local restaurant. Another man was chopped into pieces and burned. A woman had her abdomen ripped open with a chainsaw. An indigenous leader named Cayetano Cruz, was cut in half with a chainsaw.[105][107][108] The paramilitaries lined up the villagers in the middle of the town, and asked people if they knew any guerrillas. If they answered "no", they were hacked to death with machetes.[109] Many of the bodies were dismembered, and strewn piecemeal around the area, making it difficult to gain an accurate body count and identify victims. Between 4,000 and 6,000 people were displaced as they fled the area during and following the violence.[105][108]

Despite repeated warnings over the preceding two weeks that such an attack was about to occur, the Colombian military refused to provide protection for the villagers. And although the massacre went on for more than three days, the nearby Third Brigade did not show up until after it was over. Yet, when the FARC attempted to take over a town, in neighboring Nariño, the military responded within three hours.[105][106] Some of the villagers traveled to the Colombian Army's Third Brigade an hour away. The Cauca People's Defender, Victor Javier Melendez, notified the military that a massacre was occurring on the morning of April 13. He received no response.[105] The Colombian Public Advocate's office stated: "it is inexplicable how approximately 500 paramilitaries could carry out an operation of this type without being challenged in any way, especially since the area that these men entered is only twenty minutes from the village of Timba, where a base operated by the Colombian Army is located and has been staffed since March 30 of this year."[107]

Betoyes Massacre edit

Another massacre took place in Betoyes, Arauca department in early May 2003. Several people belonging to the indigenous Guahibo community were killed and over 300 people fled. Three girls, aged 11, 12, and 15, were raped. Another 16-year-old pregnant mother, Omaira Fernández was raped, and then had her womb cut open and the fetus ripped out which they then hacked up with a machete. They then dumped the bodies into the river. An Amnesty International reported on June 4, 2003, that the Colombian army's 18th Brigade's "Navos Pardo Battalion" fully supported the AUC in carrying out the massacre: "... in Betoyes in January 2003, witnesses said that the AUC armband of one attacker slipped to reveal the words 'Navos Pardo Battalion' printed on the uniform beneath."[110]

Forced displacement edit

 
Displaced Embera-Catios Indian girl in Cazuca near Bogota, Colombia. Paramilitary violence is responsible for most of the displacement in the country's ongoing conflict.

More than 5 million people out of Colombia's total population of approximately 40 million have been internally displaced since 1985, making it the country with the second highest internally displaced population in the world after Sudan. Over 3 million people have been displaced after President Álvaro Uribe took office in 2002, with over 300,000 displaced in 2005 alone.[111][112]

Paramilitary groups have been held responsible for the largest portion of displacement.[113][114] In the years 2000 and 2001, paramilitaries were blamed for 48 percent and 53 percent of forced displacement, respectively.[113] The displacement is not only a side-effect of the civil conflict, but also a deliberate policy to remove people from their territories, so that the land can be taken by wealthy elites, multinational corporations, and criminal syndicates, as well as to attack the civilian support base for the guerrillas.[114][115]

Social cleansing edit

Paramilitary groups, often with the support of local merchants, the Colombian military, and local police, have engaged in extensive "social cleansing" operations against homeless people, drug addicts, orphaned children, and other people they deem socially "undesirable".[116][117][118][119][120] In 1993 alone, at least 2190 street children were murdered, many of whom were killed by agents of the state. An estimated 5 people per day fell victim to social cleansing operations in 1995.[121]

Financing edit

Drug trade edit

The downfall of the Medellín and Cali Cartels in the 1990s created an opening for paramilitary groups, which controlled northern Colombia (the key transnational smuggling route), to take over the international cocaine trade.[122]

In 2001. Colombian government sources estimated that at least 40% of all cocaine exports from Colombia were controlled by far-right paramilitary groups, while only 2.5% were controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).[83]

Financing by U.S. corporations edit

Chiquita Brands International edit

From 1997 to 2004, Chiquita Brands International gave over $1.7 million to the AUC, over $825,000 of which was given after the U.S. State Department had listed the AUC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Families of some of the victims filed a class-action lawsuit, Doe v. Chiquita Brands International in 2007. The indictment alleges that the payments "were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation" and that by no later than September 2000, they were aware "that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization". Separate charges were also filed alleging that in 2001, using a Colombian port owned and operated by Banadex (a subsidiary of Chiquita), the company transported 3,400 AK-47 rifles and 4 million rounds of ammunition, which were destined for the AUC. Mario Iguarán, Colombia's attorney general in 2007, said that he would seek extradition for several Chiquita executives as part of the weapons smuggling investigation. Lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice learned of Chiquita's relationship with the AUC in 2003. They told Chiquita executives that the payments were illegal and ordered them to stop. After receiving the order, Chiquita made at least 19 more payments. Chiquita representatives said that they were only financing terrorist organizations "in good faith", for the protection of their employees. To date, none of the Chiquita executives have been indicted for terrorism, however the company did receive a fine of $25 million.[59][123][124][125][126] The plea deal was negotiated by Eric Holder, who was then an attorney with the law firm Covington & Burling, which represented Chiquita Brands.[127]

Drummond Coal edit

In the late 1980s, Alabama-based Drummond Coal began to expand into new markets, due to the deregulation of global capital. As part of this expansion, they purchased the Pribbenow coal mine in Colombia, as well as a Caribbean port to ship the coal. They increased production at the mine by 20 million tons annually, turning it into one of the largest coal-mining operations in the world. It made up the largest share of Drummond's $1.7 billion in annual revenues.[128]

Since it started operating in the early 1990s, Drummond's 215-mile railway has been repeatedly attacked by the FARC-EP.[129] There is evidence that right-wing paramilitaries were hired by Drummond to guard the rail lines.[126] In 2001, union activists working at Drummond's Colombian operations began receiving frequent death threats. In February of that year, AUC paramilitaries broke into the home of union organizer Cándido Méndez and killed him in front of his family. This was followed by a series of killings in March.[130]

The Coca-Cola Company edit

In July 2001 four lawsuits were filed against The Coca-Cola Company by the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and the United Steel Workers of America on behalf of Sinaltrainal (a union representing food and beverage workers in Colombia), five individuals who had been tortured or unlawfully detained for union activities, and the estate of murdered union activist Isidro Gil. The plaintiffs alleged that Coca-Cola bottlers "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained, or otherwise silenced trade union leaders." Coca-Cola does not deny that the murders and attacks on unionists took place at their bottling facilities, nor did they deny that the paramilitaries responsible for the killings were being paid by the bottlers, but they claimed that they could not be held liable because they are not in direct control of the bottling plants. In March 2001, district judge Jose E. Martinez decided in Miami that Coca-Cola could not be held liable, claiming they did not directly control the bottling plants, but allowed the case against the bottling companies to proceed forward.[131][132]

Political activities edit

See also: Colombian parapolitics scandal

The Colombian parapolitics scandal or parapolítica in Spanish (a combination of the words paramilitar and política) refers to the 2006–present Colombian congressional scandal in which several congressmen and other politicians have been indicted for colluding with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group which is responsible for killing thousands of Colombian civilians. In February 2007, Colombian Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo suggested another term, "parauribismo", indicating that the scandal was mainly affecting officials or political allies of President Álvaro Uribe's administration.[133] By April 17, 2012, 139 members of Congress were under investigation. Five governors and 32 lawmakers, including Mario Uribe Escobar, President Uribe's cousin and former President of Congress, were convicted.[134]

See also edit

References edit

Footnotes edit

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  124. ^ Garry Leech (March 19, 2007). "Slap on the Wrist for Corporate Sponsors of Terrorism". Colombia Journal.[permanent dead link]
  125. ^ Chiquita's Board Members: Total Identification Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawers' Collective 2008-08-12 at the Wayback Machine
  126. ^ a b Hristov, 2009: p. 78
  127. ^ Gray, Kevin (October 2007). . International News. Archived from the original on October 11, 2008. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
  128. ^ Leech, 2009: p. 194
  129. ^ Chomsky, Aviva (2008). Linked labor histories: New England, Colombia, and the making of a global working class. Duke University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-8223-4190-1. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
  130. ^ Chomsky, Aviva (2008). Linked labor histories: New England, Colombia, and the making of a global working class. Duke University Press. pp. 278–279. ISBN 978-0-8223-4190-1. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
  131. ^ Aram Roston (September 2001). "It's the Real Thing: Murder". The Nation. from the original on October 12, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  132. ^ Madeline Baran (November–December 2003). "Stop Killer Coke!: Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia". Dollars & Sense. from the original on July 10, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2010.
  133. ^ (in Spanish) 'Parapolítica' generó enfrentamiento entre congresistas y ministros, El Tiempo, February 28, 2007. Accessed March 3, 2007.
  134. ^ This article is Left Leaning and should be taken with a grain of salt because most of the cites are decades old and with new information that is being presented today, is outdated. "37 Colombian congressmen, 5 governors convicted for ties to paramilitaries". Colombia Reports. May 16, 2012. from the original on May 19, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2012.

Bibliography edit

  • Avilés, William (2006a). Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil-Military Relations in Colombia. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6699-5.
  • Brittain, James J. (2010). Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-2876-8.
  • Hristov, Jasmin (2009). Blood and capital: the paramilitarization of Colombia. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0-89680-267-4.
  • HRW (1996); Colombia's Killer Networks: The Military-Paramilitary Partnership and the United States, Human Rights Watch (Also in Spanish here)
  • HRW (Sept. 2001); The "Sixth Division": Military-paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia, Human Rights Watch
  • Kirk, Robin (2003). More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, drugs, and America's war in Colombia. Public Affairs. pp. 149–151. ISBN 978-1-58648-104-9.
  • Livingstone, Grace (2004). Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy, and War. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3443-5.
  • Nussio, Enzo (2011). "Learning from Shortcomings – the Demobilization of Paramilitaries in Colombia". Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. 6 (2): 88–92. doi:10.1080/15423166.2011.487780731626. S2CID 110608128.
  • Rempe, Dennis M. (Winter 1995). . Small Wars and Insurgencies. 6 (3): 304–327. doi:10.1080/09592319508423115. Archived from the original on March 30, 2010.
  • Richani, Nazih (2002). Systems of Violence: the political economy of war and peace in Colombia. SUNY Press.
  • Romero, Mauricio (2003). Paramilitares y autodefensas. 1982-2003 (in Spanish). IEPRI - Planeta.
  • Scott, Peter Dale (2003). Drugs, oil, and war: the United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-2522-1.
  • Stokes, Doug (2005). America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia. Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-84277-547-9.
  • Tate, Winifred (2001). (PDF). Brown Journal of World Affairs. Brown University. 8 (Part 1). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 9, 2011. Retrieved May 24, 2016.

Further reading edit

Books edit

  • Steven Dudley (January 2004). Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-93303-2.
  • Duzan, Maria Jimena; Peter Eisner (translator) (1994). Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-017057-8. {{cite book}}: |author2= has generic name (help)
  • Alejandro García (2009). Los crímenes de estado y su gestión. Dos experiencias postraumáticas y una aproximación a la Justicia Penal Internacional. Investigación y debate (in Spanish). Vol. 33. CYAN. ISBN 978-84-8319-430-0.
  • Jennifer S. Holmes; Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres; Kevin M. Curtin (2008). Guns, drugs, and development in Colombia. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71871-5.
  • Jasmin Hristov (2009). Blood and capital : the paramilitarization of Colombia. Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780896802674.
  • Harvey F. Kline (2007). Chronicle of a failure foretold: the peace process of Colombian president Andrés Pastrana. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-5410-7.
  • Leech, Garry (2002). Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention. Information Network of the Americas (INOTA). ISBN 978-0-9720384-0-9.
  • Mario A. Murillo; Jesús Rey Avirama (2004). Colombia and the United States: war, unrest, and destabilization. Seven Stories Press. pp. 86–104. ISBN 978-1-58322-606-3.
  • Pardo Rueda, Rafael (2004). La Historia de las Guerras (in Spanish). Ediciones B-Vergara. ISBN 978-958-97405-5-2.
  • Pastrana, Andrés (2005). La Palabra Bajo Fuego (in Spanish). Editorial Planeta.
  • Alberto Ramírez Santos, ed. (2002). Las Verdaderas Intenciones de los Paramilitares (in Spanish). Intermedio Editores.
  • Mauricio Romero (2003). "Paramilitary Groups in Contemporary Colombia". In Diane Davis; Anthony Pereira (eds.). Irregular Armies and Their Role in Politics and State Formation. Cambridge University Press.
  • Mauricio Romero; León Valencia; Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris (2007). Mauricio Romero (ed.). Parapolítica: la ruta de la expansión paramilitar y los acuerdos políticos (in Spanish). Intermedio Editores. ISBN 978-958-709-709-2.
  • Bert Ruiz (October 1, 2001). The Colombian Civil War. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-1084-2.
  • Rebeca Toledo; Teresa Gutierrez; Sara Flounders; Andy McInerney, eds. (2003). War in Colombia: Made in U.S.A. ISBN 978-0965691697.
  • Brenda K. Uekert (1995). Rivers of blood: a comparative study of government massacres. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-95165-8.

Journal articles edit

  • Winifred Tate (2001). (PDF). Brown Journal of World Affairs. Brown University. 8 (PART 1): 163–176. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 9, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  • Doug Stokes (October 2003). "Why the End of the Cold War Doesn't Matter: The US War of Terror in Colombia" (PDF). Review of International Studies. 29 (4): 569–585. doi:10.1017/s0260210503005692. JSTOR 20097877. S2CID 143862200.
  • Jennifer S. Easterday (2009). (PDF). Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law. 26 (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  • Novelli, Mario (2010). "Education, conflict and social (in)justice: insights from Colombia". Educational Review. 62 (3): 271–285. doi:10.1080/00131911.2010.503598. S2CID 144571085.
  • Doug Stokes (Summer 2001). "Better lead than bread? A critical analysis of the US's plan Colombia". Civil Wars. 4 (2): 59–78. doi:10.1080/13698240108402469. S2CID 143691910.
  • Nazih Richani (Autumn 2005). "Multinational Corporations, Rentier Capitalism, and the War System in Colombia". Latin American Politics and Society. 47 (3): 113–144. doi:10.1353/lap.2005.0037. JSTOR 4490420. S2CID 154858035.
  • Olga Martin-Ortega (2008). "Deadly Ventures? Multinational Corporations and Paramilitaries in Colombia" (PDF). Revista Electrónica de Estudios Internacionales. 16.[permanent dead link]
  • Sam Goffman (September–October 2005). "Colombia: Paramilitaries Get Sweetheart Deal". NACLA Report on the Americas. 39 (2): 50–51.
  • "Coercion Incorporated: Paramilitary Colombia". NACLA Report on the Americas. 42 (4): 11. July–August 2009. doi:10.1080/10714839.2009.11722226. S2CID 218602156.
  • Nazih Richani (September–October 2000). "the Paramilitary Connection". NACLA Report on the Americas. 34 (2): 38. doi:10.1080/10714839.2000.11722632. S2CID 185226968.
  • Jasmin Hristov (July–August 2009). "Legalizing the Illegal: Paramilitarism in Colombia's 'Post-Paramilitary' Era". NACLA Report on the Americas. 42 (4): 12–39. doi:10.1080/10714839.2009.11722227. S2CID 157464898.
  • Gary Leech (September–October 2004). "U.S./Colombia: Demobilizing the AUC?". NACLA Report on the Americas. 38 (2): 42–44.
  • Marc Chernick (March–April 1998). "The paramilitarization of the war in Colombia". NACLA Report on the Americas. 31 (5): 28. doi:10.1080/10714839.1998.11722772.
  • Anastasia Moloney (September–October 2004). "Displaced in Colombia". NACLA Report on the Americas. 38 (2): 9–12. doi:10.1080/10714839.2004.11722391. S2CID 185059911.
  • Lesley Gill (July–August 2009). "Durable Disorder: Parapolitics in Barrancabermeja". NACLA Report on the Americas. 42 (4): 20–39. doi:10.1080/10714839.2009.11725457. S2CID 157886731.
  • Hanson, Heather; Penna, Rogers Romero (May–June 2005). "The Failure of Colombia's "Democratic Security"". NACLA Report on the Americas. 38 (6): 22–41. doi:10.1080/10714839.2005.11722371. S2CID 157101522.
  • Forrest Hylton (May–June 2006). "Politics as Organized Crime in Colombia?". NACLA Report on the Americas. 39 (6): 4–38. doi:10.1080/10714839.2006.11722327. S2CID 157998433.
  • Nazih Richani (2007). "Caudillos and the Crisis of the Colombian State: fragmented sovereignty, the war system and the privatisation of counterinsurgency in Colombia". Third World Quarterly. 28 (2): 403–417. doi:10.1080/01436590601153937. S2CID 153576077.
  • Vanda Felbab-Brown (2005). "The Coca Connection: Conflict and Drugs in Colombia and Peru". Journal of Conflict Studies. 25 (2). Retrieved August 26, 2010.[permanent dead link]

Government/NGO Reports edit

  • "Body count mentalities": Colombia's "False Positives" Scandal, Declassified, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 266, National Security Archive, January 7, 2009
  • Paramilitaries as Proxies: Declassified evidence on the Colombian army's anti-guerrilla "allies", National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 166, National Security Archive, October 16, 2005
  • Documents Implicate Colombian Government in Chiquita Terror Scandal: Company's Paramilitary Payoffs made through Military's 'Convivir', National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 217, National Security Archive, March 29, 2007 (see also: Más sospechas de nexos entre 'paras' y militares revelan reportes de la CIA y Embajada de E.U.[3] July 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine)
  • The Truth about Triple-A: U.S. Document Implicates Current, Former Colombian Army Commanders in Terror Operation, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 223, National Security Archive, July 1, 2007
  • Colombian Paramilitaries and the United States: "Unraveling the Pepes Tangled Web", National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 243, National Security Archive, February 17, 2008
  • Conspiracy of Silence?: Colombia, the United States and the Massacre at El Salado, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 287, National Security Archive, September 24, 2009
  • The United States vs. Rito Alejo del Río: Ambassador Cited Accused Colombian General's Reliance on Death Squads, "Systematic" Support of Paramilitaries "Pivotal to his Military Success", National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 327, National Security Archive, September 29, 2010
  • Trujillo Declassified: Documenting Colombia's 'tragedy without end', National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 259, National Security Archive, October 5, 2008
  • Volume III: Conditioning Security Assistance in War in Colombia: Guerrillas, Drugs and Human Rights in U.S. Colombia Policy, 1988-2002: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 69, National Security Archive, May 3, 2002
  • Kim Cragan, Bruce Hoffman; "Arms Trafficking and Colombia". RAND Corporation, 2003
  • The Ties That Bind: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links, Human Rights Watch, February 2000
  • The "Sixth Division": Military-paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia, Human Rights Watch, September 2001
  • Breaking the Grip?: Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia, Human Rights Watch, November 17, 2008
  • Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia, Human Rights Watch, February 2010
  • , Amnesty International, September 2006
  • Colombia: The Paramilitaries in Medellín: Demobilization or Legalization?, Amnesty International, August 31, 2005
  • Amnesty International, "Colombia: Barrancabermeja: A city under siege", 1 May 1999
  • , Latin American Working Group, June 2008
  • , Latin American Working Group, July 2003
  • Colombia 2005 Report July 28, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Spanish and English)

News / magazines edit

  • Constanza Vieira (July 11, 2010). . Inter Press Service. Archived from the original on July 14, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2010.
  • . Cambio (in Spanish). May 2010. Archived from the original on February 27, 2012. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
  • Constanza Vieira (February 4, 2010). . Inter Press Service. Archived from the original on June 21, 2010. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  • . Center for International Policy. November 18, 2009. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
  • Gustavo Gómez (September 28, 2008). . Semana (in Spanish). Archived from the original on January 19, 2011. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
  • Constanza Vieira (April 1, 2008). . Inter Press Service. Archived from the original on June 10, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  • Bill Conroy (May 18, 2008). "Money Laundering & Murder in Colombia: Official Documents Point to DEA Complicity". Narco News.
  • Michael Evans (April 16, 2007). . The Nation. Archived from the original on July 17, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2010.
  • "Oil-Palm Plantations on Afro-Colombian Lands". Dollars & Sense. July–August 2007. (Original in Spanish: Oil-Palm Plantations on Afro-Colombian Lands: An Exchange | Dollars & Sense)
  • Steven Ambrus (Spring 2007). . Amnesty Magazine. Amnesty International. Archived from the original on February 20, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  • Robert Verkaik (July 22, 2006). . The Independent. Archived from the original on December 16, 2008.
  • Constanza Vieira (April 10, 2006). . Inter Press Service. Archived from the original on June 10, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  • Christian Parenti (May 25, 2006). . The Nation. Archived from the original on October 12, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  • Bill Conroy (January 9, 2006). "Leaked Memo: Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries". Narco News.
  • Mitchell, Chip (May 2005). "Along for the Ride: Colombia's paramilitaries are getting a pass, with a wink from Washington". The Progressive.
  • Luis Gómez (June 16, 2003). ""We Don't Negotiate with Terrorists?": United States Officials Had Brunch with the Colombian Paramilitaries Last Month". Narco News.
  • Jeremy Bigwood (April 8, 2003). "Doing the US's Dirty Work: The Colombian Paramilitaries and Israel". Narco News.
  • Madeline Baran (November–December 2003). "Stop Killer Coke!: Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia". Dollars & Sense.
  • Tristan Adie (May–June 2002). . International Socialist Review. No. 23. Archived from the original on July 15, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2010.

External links edit

  • – (mirror from Archive.org , in Spanish)
  • , Human Rights Watch
  • Colombia Journal July 17, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  • Alto Comisionado para la Paz (Spanish)
  • Colombia Program, Center for International Policy
  • Colombia – Third World Traveller
  • BP in Colombia, Sourcewatch
  • Colombia Solidarity Campaign
  • Who are the victims? - The aftermath of violence in Colombia – (Former combatants in Colombia's internal armed conflict spent two years painting their experiences. They face difficult decisions about what to remember, what to forget and how to forgive)

Movies edit

  • Impunity-The Film – Film about the AUC
  • Little Voices (Pequeñas Voces) – An animated movie about the vision of children in the war in Colombia.

December 02, 2023
right, wing, paramilitarism, colombia, right, wing, paramilitary, groups, colombia, spanish, paramilitares, derecha, paramilitary, groups, acting, opposition, revolutionary, marxist, leninist, guerrilla, forces, their, allies, among, civilian, population, thes. Right wing paramilitary groups in Colombia Spanish paramilitares de derecha are paramilitary groups acting in opposition to revolutionary Marxist Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population These right wing paramilitary groups control a large majority of the illegal drug trade of cocaine and other substances The Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38 4 of the civilian deaths while the Guerillas are responsible for 16 8 10 1 by the Colombian Security Forces and 27 7 by non identified armed groups 1 although the chief prosecutor of the ICC would contradict these numbers 2 The first paramilitary groups were organized by the Colombian military following recommendations made by U S military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia during the Cold War to combat leftist political activists and armed guerrilla groups The development of more modern paramilitary groups has also involved elite landowners drug traffickers members of the security forces politicians civilians and multinational corporations Paramilitary violence today is principally targeted towards supposed left wing insurgents and their supporters Contents 1 History 1 1 Plan Lazo 1 2 Law 48 of 1968 1 3 Triple A 1 4 The rise of paramilitaries 1 4 1 Muerte a Secuestradores MAS 1 4 2 Asociacion Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio ACDEGAM 1 4 3 Movimiento de Restauracion Nacional MORENA 1 5 The Castano family and the ACCU 1 5 1 Los Tangueros 1 5 2 Foundation for the Peace of Cordoba 1 5 3 Autodefensas Campesinas de Cordoba y Uraba ACCU 1 6 Anti Paramilitary Decrees of 1989 1 7 Armed Forces Directive No 200 05 91 1 7 1 Controversy Surrounding Directive 1 8 Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar Los Pepes 1 9 Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguriadad Privada CONVIVIR 2 The Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia AUC 2 1 2003 2006 demobilization process 2 2 Reintegration of ex paramilitary fighters 3 Post AUC successor criminal groups 4 Human rights violations 4 1 Massacres 4 1 1 Mapiripan Massacre 4 1 2 Alto Naya massacre 4 1 3 Betoyes Massacre 4 2 Forced displacement 4 3 Social cleansing 5 Financing 5 1 Drug trade 5 2 Financing by U S corporations 5 2 1 Chiquita Brands International 5 2 2 Drummond Coal 5 2 3 The Coca Cola Company 6 Political activities 7 See also 8 References 8 1 Footnotes 8 2 Bibliography 9 Further reading 9 1 Books 9 2 Journal articles 9 3 Government NGO Reports 9 4 News magazines 10 External links 10 1 MoviesHistory editPlan Lazo edit nbsp US General William P Yarborough was the head of a counterinsurgency team sent to Colombia in 1962 by the US Special Warfare Center Yarborough was one of the earliest proponents of paramilitary and or terrorist activities against known communist proponents 3 In October 1959 the United States sent a Special Survey Team composed of counterinsurgency experts to investigate Colombia s internal security situation This was due to the increased prevalence of armed communist groups in rural Colombia which formed during and after La Violencia 4 In February 1962 a Fort Bragg top level U S Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P Yarborough visited Colombia for a second survey 5 In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed perform counter agent and counter propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary sabotage and or terrorist activities against known communist proponents It should be backed by the United States 6 7 8 The new counter insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas Following Yarborough s recommendations the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary civil defense groups which worked alongside the military in its counter insurgency campaign as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against interventionist charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature 4 8 9 It was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough s 1962 recommendations 10 Law 48 of 1968 edit The first legal framework for the training of civilians by military or police forces for security purposes was formally established by the Colombian presidential decree 3398 of 1965 issued during a state of siege which defined the defense of the nation as requiring the organization and tasking of all of the residents of the country and its natural resources to guarantee National Independence and institutional stability 8 This decree temporarily allowed the formation of private security forces used to protect large landowners cattle ranchers and government officials 8 11 12 Decree 3398 was later succeeded by Law 48 of 1968 a piece of permanent legislation that gave the Colombian executive the power to establish civil patrols by decree and allowed the Defense Ministry to supply their members with military grade weaponry 8 Human Rights Watch has pointed out that although few civil patrols were ever formally created by the president the military frequently cited Law 48 as the legal foundation for their support for all paramilitaries 8 A series of Colombian military manuals from the 1960s encouraged the creation of paramilitary organizations to help fight guerrillas In 1969 the Reglamento de EJC 3 10 Reservado de 1969 EJC 3 Order Restricted 1969 stated that the armed forces should organize self defense committees which were defined as military type organizations made up of civilian personnel in the combat zone which are trained and equipped to undertake operations against guerrilla groups that threaten an area or to operate in coordination with combat troops 13 These committees were to maintain contact with local military officers keeping a high level awareness about any suspicious communist action in their communities in particular those of suspected guerrilla supporters The manual also allowed military personnel to dress in civilian clothes when necessary to infiltrate areas of suspected guerrilla influence and for civilian helpers to travel alongside military units Separately in order to help gain the trust of local citizens the military was advised to participate in the daily activities of the community where and when applicable 8 Triple A edit Not to be confused with Argentine Anticommunist Alliance Between 1978 and 1979 an alleged far right paramilitary organization known as the American Anti Communist Alliance also AAA or Triple A started a terror campaign against Colombian communists which included bombings kidnappings and assassinations It was later revealed that the organization had direct links to the Colombian National Army Contemporary accusations and declassified U S Embassy documents have linked the creation and operation to the Charry Solano Battalion of Intelligence and Counter intelligence BINCI that employed the Triple A name as a covert name 14 15 The rise of paramilitaries edit That they try to present me as an associate of the guerrilla hurts my personal dignity I am a man of investments and therefore I cannot sympathize with the guerrillas who fight against property Pablo Escobar head of the Medellin Cartel 16 In the late 1970s the illegal cocaine trade took off and became a major source of profit By 1982 cocaine surpassed coffee as a national export making up 30 of all Colombian exports Many members of the new class of wealthy drug barons began purchasing enormous quantities of land for a number of reasons in order to launder their drug money and to gain social status among the traditional Colombian elite By the late 1980s drug traffickers were the largest landholders in Colombia and wielded immense political power They raised private armies to fight off guerrillas who were trying to either redistribute their lands to local peasants kidnap members of their family or extract the gramaje tax that was commonly levied on landed elites 17 18 19 Muerte a Secuestradores MAS edit Between the end of 1981 and the beginning of 1982 members of the Medellin Cartel the Colombian military the U S based corporation Texas Petroleum the Colombian legislature small industrialists and wealthy cattle ranchers came together in a series of meetings in Puerto Boyaca and formed a paramilitary organization known as Muerte a Secuestradores Death to Kidnappers MAS They formed this organization to defend their economic interests to fight against the guerrillas and to provide protection for local elites from kidnappings and extortion 8 20 21 By 1983 Colombian internal affairs had registered 240 political killings by MAS death squads mostly community leaders elected officials and farmers 22 Asociacion Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio ACDEGAM edit The following year the Asociacion Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio Association of Middle Magdalena Ranchers and Farmers ACDEGAM was created to handle both the logistics and the public relations of the organization and to provide a legal front for various paramilitary groups ACDEGAM worked to promote anti labor policies and threatened anyone involved with organizing for labor or peasants rights The threats were backed by the MAS which would come in and attack or assassinate anyone who was suspected of being a subversive 8 23 ACDEGAM also built schools whose stated purpose was the creation of a patriotic and anti Communist educational environment built roads bridges and health clinics Paramilitary recruiting weapons storage communications propaganda and medical services were all run out of ACDEGAM headquarters 23 24 By the mid 1980s ACDEGAM and MAS had experienced significant growth In 1985 the powerful drug traffickers Pablo Escobar Jorge Luis Ochoa and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha began funneling large amounts of cash into the organization to pay for weaponry equipment and training Funding for social projects was cut and put towards strengthening the MAS Modern battle rifles such as the Galil HK G3 FN FAL and AKM were purchased from the military and INDUMIL through drug funded private sales The organization had computers and ran a communications center that worked in coordination with the state telecommunications office They had thirty pilots and an assortment of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft U S Israeli British and Australian military instructors were hired to teach at paramilitary training centers 8 21 23 24 25 26 According to the report by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad DAS Colombia s Administrative Security Department between December 1987 and May 1988 Rodriguez Gacha hired Israeli and British mercenaries to train teams of assassins at remote training camps in Colombia Yair Klein a retired Israeli lieutenant colonel acknowledged having led a team of instructors in Puerto Boyaca in early 1988 27 Movimiento de Restauracion Nacional MORENA edit By the end of the 1980s the MAS had a significant presence in 8 of Colombia s 32 departments Antioquia Boyaca Caqueta Cordoba Cundinamarca Meta Putumayo and Santander During this period a stated goal of the groups was to kill members of the Patriotic Union or any political groups that opposed drug trafficking 8 23 At the same time they began to intensively involve themselves in municipal regional and national politics In August 1989 the Movimiento de Restauracion Nacional Movement of National Restoration MORENA was formed by members of ACDEGAM 28 29 30 31 Critics of the MORENA experiment either saw it as an attempt at legitimizing paramilitarism and its abuses as an extension of ACDEGAM or as a copycat of El Salvador s ARENA citation needed The Castano family and the ACCU edit In the late 1970s the FARC EP began gathering intelligence on Don Jesus Castano A wealthy rancher in Segovia Antioquia far right conservative and influential local politician Don Jesus was considered an ideal target for kidnapping The Don was kidnapped in 1981 and ultimately died while in captivity 11 32 Don Jesus had several sons The oldest of these Fidel had accumulated a fortune illegally smuggling emeralds robbing and trafficking cocaine and marijuana By the 1980s Fidel had become one of the most powerful mafia capos in the world and had purchased large tracts of lands in northern Colombia By 1988 he and his younger brother Carlos purchased over 1 2 million hectares of land in Antioquia Cordoba and Choco 11 33 As a teenager Carlos Castano had worked as an informant for the Colombian army s Bombona battalion which had strong links to MAS death squads He later worked as an assassin for the MAS and was supplied with weapons by army officers In 1983 Carlos went to Tel Aviv Israel where he spent a year taking courses in paramilitary and counterinsurgency tactics 19 32 34 Los Tangueros edit While Carlos was in Israel Fidel hired a group of over 100 armed men which began to terrorize the local populace The thugs became known as Los Tangueros by the villagers after the name of the Castano ranch Las Tangas where they were based In 1983 under orders from Fidel a group of men went through the villages near Segovia where his father had been held and killed every man woman and child living on the river nearby They pulled babies out of their mothers arms and shot them nailing one baby to a plank They impaled a man on a bamboo pole and hacked a woman to pieces with a machete By the time they were done 22 people were dead 32 35 By the late 1980s numerous cattle ranchers in Cordoba were now supporting Fidel Castano Many of them had been forced to pay increasing amounts of extortion money to the EPL and other Communist guerrillas under the threat of kidnapping or having their ranches burned and their animals killed 36 Widespread local mobilizations against the central government s peace initiatives the guerrillas and political movements thought to have their consent or approval were organized under the leadership of the Colombian military and Fidel s group Between 1988 and 1990 Colombian press sources reported almost 200 political murders and 400 suspected political assassinations in the region and official government figures suggested that a total of 1 200 of them took place in Cordoba during the period Left wing politicians received anonymous death threats and were frequently interrogated in army bases by the 11th Brigade 36 Foundation for the Peace of Cordoba edit In 1990 Fidel Castano offered to disband his paramilitary forces if the EPL agreed to demobilize Having previously faced the combined pressure of Los Tangueros and the Colombian military the guerrillas demobilized over 2 000 illegal combatants and founded the Hope Peace and Liberty party Fidel surrendered some weapons to government authorities and created the Fundacion por la Paz de Cordoba Foundation for the Peace of Cordoba which provided money land cattle and other support to hundreds of former EPL combatants Electoral alliances between the new party the AD M19 and local right wing politicians were established 37 38 After the demobilization the Communist FARC EP expanded its activities in Cordoba and clashes between them a dissident EPL faction and the demobilized guerrillas some of which formed armed popular commands led to almost 200 murders of former fighters and continued violence 37 39 Carlos Castano claimed that this was the reason he decided to reactivate his family s private army 37 39 Autodefensas Campesinas de Cordoba y Uraba ACCU edit In 1994 Carlos took control of Los Tangueros which officially changed their name to the Autodefensas Campesinas de Cordoba y Uraba Peasant Self Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba ACCU The ACCU began working with regional military forces such as the Bombona battalion to crush the guerrillas and murder or intimidate anyone suspected of supporting them The ACCU helped military commanders by providing intelligence regarding local guerrilla activities The ACCU began networking with other paramilitary groups such as the MAS and began to take over large areas of northern Colombia which was the principal transnational shipping point for illegal drugs 11 40 Anti Paramilitary Decrees of 1989 edit In 1987 government statistics revealed that paramilitaries had been responsible for more civilian deaths than guerrillas deaths Two years later in 1989 the Colombian government under the administration of Virgilio Barco 1986 1990 passed a series of decrees that promised to reduce paramilitary violence 41 42 The first of the decrees Decree 813 called for the creation of a commission to oversee the government s anti paramilitary efforts The commission was to include the Ministers of Government Justice and National Defense along with the chiefs of the Army National Police and DAS The commission was supposed to plan ways to cut down on paramilitary violence and oversee the execution of these plans 42 However most of the people in the commission had either openly voiced support for the paramilitaries or headed agencies with very strong ties to paramilitary groups and the commission rarely met over the following decade 41 43 The second decree Decree 814 established a 1 000 member anti paramilitary police force that was made up of active duty officers from the National Police 42 The police force was mostly assigned to raiding drug laboratories and the offices of drug trafficking organizations rather than confronting the paramilitaries directly 41 The third decree Decree 815 suspended the Armed Forces s privilege to distribute weapons to armed civilian groups a power which had been granted under Law 48 in 1968 and required any new armed civilian groups to be approved by the President and Ministers of Defense and Government However the government did not outlaw the already existing paramilitary groups or require that they be re certified through the more stringent new standards 41 42 44 In 1989 the administration issued Decree 1194 which outlawed the armed groups misnamed paramilitary groups that have been formed into death squads bands of hired assassins self defense groups or groups that carry out their own justice after the murder of two judges and ten government investigators at La Rochela Santander The decree established criminal penalties for both civilians and members of the armed forces involved in the promotion financing training and membership of said groups 37 Armed Forces Directive No 200 05 91 edit In 1990 the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U S Embassy s Military Group U S Southern Command the Defence Intelligence Agency DIA and the Central Intelligence Agency CIA in order to give advice on the reshaping of several of the Colombian military s local intelligence networks ostensibly to aid the Colombian military in counter narcotics efforts 45 Advice was also solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence but the U S proposals were ultimately selected by the Colombian military 46 The result of these meetings was Armed Forces Directive 200 05 91 issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in May 1991 The order itself made no mention of drugs or counter narcotics operations at all but instead focused exclusively on creating covert intelligence networks to combat the insurgency 46 Controversy Surrounding Directive edit Human Rights Watch HRW concluded that these intelligence networks subsequently laid the groundwork for continuing an illegal covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries HRW argued that the restructuring process solidified linkages between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities citation needed In effect HRW believed that this further consolidated a secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence but to carry out murder 45 HRW argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses HRW stated that the military intelligence networks created by the U S reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence stating that the recommendations were given despite the fact that some of the U S officials who collaborated with the team knew of the Colombian military s record of human rights abuses and its ongoing relations with paramilitaries 45 HRW stated that while not all paramilitaries are intimate partners with the military the existing partnership between paramilitaries and the Colombian military was a sophisticated mechanism in part supported by years of advice training weaponry and official silence by the United States that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it 47 As an example of increased violence and dirty war tactics HRW cited a partnership between the Colombian Navy and the MAS in Barrancabermeja where In partnership with MAS the navy intelligence network set up in Barrancabermeja adopted as its goal not only the elimination of anyone perceived as supporting the guerrillas but also members of the political opposition journalists trade unionists and human rights workers particularly if they investigated or criticized their terror tactics 45 Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar Los Pepes edit Main article Los Pepes nbsp Man killed in Medellin by Los PepesIn 1992 Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison La Catedral Shortly after the Cali Cartel dissidents within the Medellin Cartel and the MAS worked together to create a new paramilitary organization known as Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar Los Pepes with the purpose of tracking down and killing Pablo Escobar and his associates The organization was led by Fidel Castano 48 49 50 51 The Cali Cartel provided 50 million to pay for weapons informants and assassins with the hopes that they could wipe out their primary rival in the cocaine business 52 Members of both Colombian and U S government agencies including the DEA CIA and State Department provided intelligence to Los Pepes 49 Pablo Escobar complained about how the government targeted the Medellin Cartel but did not go after paramilitaries or members of the Cali Cartel saying Los Pepes have their torture chambers in Fidel Castano s house in Medellin located near the country club There they torture trade unionists and lawyers No one has searched their house or confiscated their assets The government offers rewards for the leaders of the Medellin Cartel and for the leaders of the guerrillas but doesn t offer rewards for the leaders of the paramilitaries nor for those of the Cali Cartel authors of various car bombs in the city of Medellin 53 Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguriadad Privada CONVIVIR edit During the 1990s the FARC EP and other guerrilla groups experienced significant growth and achieved a series of military successes against government forces increasing the amount of territory under their control The administration of President Ernesto Samper 1994 1998 carried out ineffective operations against the insurgency and attempted to enter into peace negotiations Colombian military commanders resisted Samper s offer of a demilitarized zone in La Uribe Meta Department meant to hold these talks The FARC EP leadership expressed initial interest in the administration s plan but ultimately refused to accept any preconditions The Samper administration was also seriously undermined it in the eyes of the guerillas after the scandal concerning the receipt of over 6 million in campaign from the Cali Cartel 54 55 56 57 In 1994 Decree 356 of Colombia s Ministry of Defense authorized the creation of legal paramilitary groups known as Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguriadad Privada Special vigilance and private security services also known as CONVIVIR groups The CONVIVIR groups were intended to maintain control over high risk areas where guerrillas did not have a strong presence after having been expelled and where there was no need for a large military force or illegal paramilitary presence anymore Many illegal paramilitary groups transitioned into legal CONVIVIR groups after this These CONVIVIR groups worked alongside both the Colombian military and illegal paramilitary groups in counterinsurgency operations 58 The governor of Antioquia Alvaro Uribe Velez who would later become President of Colombia was one of the primary proponents of the CONVIVIR program 59 60 Statistics regarding the exact number of CONVIVIR groups differ and have been considered hard to obtain 61 Estimates indicate that by the late 1990s from 414 to over 500 of these groups had been created with their membership ranging from 10 000 to 120 000 Uribe s department of Antioquia had some 65 CONVIVIR groups one of the highest figures in the country 60 61 62 63 64 Amnesty International claims that the CONVIVIR groups committed numerous human rights abuses against civilians working in coordination with the Colombian government and paramilitaries 58 In 1998 Human Rights Watch stated that we have received credible information that indicated that the CONVIVIR groups of the Middle Magdalena and of the southern Cesar regions were directed by known paramilitaries and had threatened to assassinate Colombians that were considered as guerrilla sympathizers or which rejected joining the cooperative groups 65 In November 1997 due to mounting concerns over human rights violations committed by CONVIVIR groups and the relations between illegal paramilitaries and CONVIVIR the Constitutional Court of Colombia stated that the issue of military weaponry to civilians and specifically to CONVIVIR groups was unconstitutional 58 and that CONVIVIR members could no longer be used to gather intelligence information 37 Many of the CONVIVIR groups simply joined up with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia AUC 58 66 By the end of the decade there had been a tenfold increase in the number of Colombian paramilitaries 67 The Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia AUC editMain article United Self Defense Forces of Colombia In April 1997 the creation of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia United Self Defense Forces of Colombia or AUC was announced formally inaugurating what has been termed by analysts as the second generation of paramilitarism It is considered to be the result of Carlos Castano s efforts to achieve a measure of unity between most of the other paramilitary forces in the country Several paramilitary groups did not join but the AUC itself claimed to represent about 90 of existing forces at the time Castano s ACCU formally became the core of the new umbrella organization while the other heads of paramilitary groups kept their own leadership positions becoming part of a federated High Command of the AUC It has been considered by observers that the FARC s advances as part of a 1996 to 1998 offensive eased the process of this formal paramilitary unification 68 As a response the AUC engaged in a renewed series of massacres and assassinations often with the passive or active aid of elements of the Colombian government s security forces according to human rights organizations 69 2003 2006 demobilization process edit In July 2003 the Uribe administration began formal negotiations with the AUC with the stated aim of seeking its demobilization Law 975 of 2005 also known as the Justice and Peace law was approved by the Colombian Congress and constituted the main legal framework applicable to those paramilitaries who had committed serious crimes 70 The legislation gave AUC combatants broad concessions such as allowing paramilitaries to keep profits made from criminal activities during their time in the AUC limiting sentences to a maximum of 8 years which could be served on private farms instead of in prisons and not obliging them to dismantle their power structures 71 72 Under the Colombian government s interpretation of Law 782 of 2002 and Decree 128 of 2003 the majority of the paramilitaries who submitted to the process were pardoned through the cessation of judicial procedures for charges related to their membership in the group Only 3 700 of the paramilitaries applied for Justice and Peace benefits 70 The demobilization process was heavily criticized by national and international human rights organizations as well as by international entities 73 such as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter American Commission on Human Rights IACHR of the OAS citing its non compliance with international standards on the rights of victims to seek justice and reparation and granting impunity to human rights violators 74 Colombian congresswoman Gina Parody claimed that Law 975 gave benefits to people who have committed the worst crimes 71 On May 18 2006 the Constitutional Court of Colombia reviewed Law 975 of 2005 modifying and striking down several of its original articles and correcting some of the problems critics had identified The revision requires full confessions turning over illegally acquired assets provides that reduced sentences may be revoked for lying and removes time limits on investigations The Court also ruled against the option for paramilitaries to serve their sentences outside of prison or to deduct time spent during negotiations 70 In 2007 and 2008 paramilitary commanders provided useful information to prosecutors about their activities and associates However of some 1 800 individuals who began confessing their crimes to prosecutors in 2005 just 5 had completed their hearings by 2009 A limited number of assets worth an estimated US 5 million had been surrendered to the official reparations fund but procedures for the return of stolen land to its original owners remained stagnant and paramilitary leaders extradited to the United States mostly ceased collaborations with authorities 70 Serious flaws during the demobilization phase such as the Colombian government s failure to interrogate and verify the identities of those involved in the process allowed many paramilitaries to remain active form new successor groups and continue to engage in human rights violations 70 In September 2006 Amnesty International said 74 Media reports suggest that over 30 000 paramilitaries have demobilized However paramilitaries in supposedly demobilized areas continue to operate often under new names and to commit violations There is also strong evidence of continued links between paramilitaries and the security forces There were also fears that government policies designed to reintegrate members of illegal armed groups into civilian life risked recycling them into the conflict In February 2010 Human Rights Watch said 70 The successor groups though different in important respects from the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia have taken on many of the same roles often with some of the same personnel in some cases with the same counterinsurgency objectives of the AUC It is clear that many paramilitary combatants did in fact go through the demobilization process and abandoned their groups for good However there is substantial evidence that many others who participated in the demobilization process were stand ins rather than paramilitaries and that portions of the groups remained active There is also evidence that members of the groups who supposedly demobilized continued engaging in illegal activities A 2010 United Nations report stated that The vast majority of paramilitaries responsible for human rights violations were demobilized without investigation and many were effectively granted amnesties Today the failure in accountability is clear from the dramatic rise in killings by illegal armed groups composed largely of former paramilitaries 75 A December 2014 International Crisis Group report stated that Demobilisation remained partial as some stayed outside the process or went on to rearm strongly contributing to the emergence of successor groups known as New Illegal Armed Groups NAIGs Their number has fallen from 32 in 2006 to three but they still muster some 3 000 members often concentrated in regions with a strong paramilitary legacy such as Uraba the Eastern Plains the south western departments or the Caribbean coast 76 Reintegration of ex paramilitary fighters edit Since 2006 the Office of the High Counselor for Reintegration ACR has been in charge of the reintegration policy for demobilized AUC members The ACR assists ex combatants with education vocational training grants for micro businesses psychosocial support healthcare and a monthly stipend dependent on the ex combatants participation to reintegration activities Of the 31 671 demobilized members of the AUC 20 267 were actively participating in the reintegration program by the end of 2009 The others were either involved in the process of Justice and Peace imprisoned due to infractions after their demobilization dead or had left the program for unknown reasons 77 78 Post AUC successor criminal groups editNew paramilitary groups and related drug trafficking gangs that have continued operating after the AUC demobilization process are referred to as bandas criminales BACRIM or criminal gangs by the Colombian government 79 According to the Colombian National Police these groups had 3 749 members by July 2010 while the NGO Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz estimated 6 000 active combatants 80 Others estimate their ranks may include up to 10 000 people 79 81 Until 2011 Colombia remained the world s largest cocaine producer 82 and since 2003 Human Rights Watch stated that according to their Colombian intelligence sources 40 percent of the country s total cocaine exports were controlled by these paramilitaries 83 84 85 86 87 In 2011 an independent investigation made by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo estimated that 50 of all Colombian cocaine was controlled by the same BACRIM groups 88 89 In the early 2010s the Black Eagles Los Rastrojos Los Urabenos Los Paisas Los Machos Renacer Los Gaitanistas 90 Nueva Generacion Bloque Meta Libertadores del Vichada the ERPAC and The Office of Envigado comprised the dominant criminal and paramilitary organizations 81 There were originally over 30 BACRIM but by late 2017 the number had been reduced to a handful as smaller groups have been absorbed by more powerful networks or dismantled by the security forces leaving only Los Urabenos with a national presence 91 These successor groups are often made up of mid level paramilitary commanders and criminal structures that either did not demobilize in the first place or were re activated after the demobilizations had concluded 80 81 Many demobilized paramilitaries received recruitment offers were threatened into joining the new organizations or have simultaneously rearmed and remained in government reintegration programs New recruits have also come from traditional areas for paramilitary recruitment 81 BACRIMs continue to be involved in the drug trade commit widespread human rights abuses engage in forced displacement and undermine democratic legitimacy in other ways both in collusion with and opposition to FARC EP guerrillas 79 80 92 Their targets have included human rights defenders labor unionists and victims of the former AUC Members of government security forces have also been accused of tolerating their growth 80 92 Human rights violations editSee also White Terror Right wing paramilitary groups have been blamed for the vast majority of human rights violations in Colombia 93 The United Nations has estimated that approximately 80 of all killings in Colombia s civil conflict have been committed by paramilitaries 12 by leftist guerrillas and the remaining 8 by government forces 94 In 2005 Amnesty International stated that the vast majority of non combat politically motivated killings disappearances and cases of torture have been carried out by army backed paramilitaries 13 In its 1999 report Human Rights Watch cited estimates from Colombian human rights organizations CINEP and Justice and Peace which indicated that paramilitary groups were responsible for about 73 of identifiable political murders during the first half of 1998 with guerrillas and state security forces being blamed for 17 and 10 percent respectively 95 The Colombian Commission of Jurists reported that in the year 2000 approximately 85 of political murders were committed by the paramilitaries and state forces 96 The AUC mutilated bodies with chainsaws They chained people to burning vehicles They decapitated and rolled heads like soccer balls They killed dozens at one time including women and children They buried people alive or hung them on meat hooks carving them the victims were civilians accused of supporting the guerrillas by supplying them with food medical supplies or transportation Robin Kirk 97 Human Rights Watch investigator in ColombiaParamilitary violence is overwhelmingly targeted towards peasants unionists teachers human rights workers journalists and liberal left wing political activists 98 99 Paramilitary abuses in Colombia are often classified as atrocities due to the brutality of their methods including the torture rape incineration decapitation and mutilation with chainsaws or machetes of dozens of their victims at a time affecting civilians women and children 17 97 98 Paramilitary forces in Colombia have additionally been charged with the illegal recruitment of children into the armed ranks Though this is an offense punishable by national law the prosecution rate for these crimes is less than 2 as of 2008 100 Many of these abuses have occurred with the knowledge and support of the Colombian security forces A 1998 Human Rights Watch report stated where paramilitaries have a pronounced presence the army fails to move against them and tolerates their activity including egregious violations of international humanitarian law provides some paramilitary groups with intelligence used to carry out operations and in other cases actively promotes and coordinates with paramilitary units including joint maneuvers in which atrocities are the frequent result In areas where paramilitaries are present some police officers have been directly implicated in joint army paramilitary actions or have supplied information to paramilitaries for their death lists Police have also stood by while paramilitaries selected and killed their victims On many occasions police have publicly described whole communities as guerrillas or sympathetic to them and have withdrawn police protection a violation of their responsibility under Colombian law to protect civilians from harm Instead of reinforcing the police after guerrilla attacks police commanders have withdrawn officers thus encouraging or allowing paramilitaries to move in unimpeded and kill civilians 37 A 1999 human rights report from the U S State Department said At times the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses in some instances individual members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups by passing them through roadblocks sharing intelligence and providing them with ammunition Paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police as well as local civilian elites in many areas 101 In 2006 Amnesty International reported that The security forces have tried to improve their human rights image by letting their paramilitary allies commit human rights violations and then denying that the paramilitaries are operating with their acquiescence support or sometimes direct coordination 74 Massacres edit Hundreds of massacres have been perpetrated by paramilitary groups in Colombia Each night they kill groups of five to six defenseless people who are cruelly and monstrously massacred after being tortured The screams of humble people are audible begging for mercy and asking for help Judge Leonardo Ivan Cortes Mapiripan Meta July 1997 37 Mapiripan Massacre edit Main article Mapiripan Massacre In Mapiripan Meta Department an estimated 30 people were killed between July 14 to 20 1997 At least 100 heavily armed AUC members arrived in the town searching for people who were suspected leftist guerrilla supporters They went from house to house referring to a list of names that had been prepared by informants earlier Civilians were taken to the town center where they were tortured by paramilitaries before being killed After torturing their victims the paramilitaries decapitated people with chainsaws hung people from meat hooks hacked people with machetes cut people s throats and carved their bodies and then threw their corpses into the nearby Guaviare River 17 102 103 The local judge of Mapiripan Leonardo Ivan Cortes called the police and the army eight times during the 5 day massacre but they did not arrive until the AUC paramilitaries had left 102 In March 1999 Colombian prosecutors accused Colonel Lino Sanchez of planning the massacre with Carlos Castano Sanchez was the operations chief of the Colombian Army s 12th Brigade He had received special training by U S Army Special Forces soldiers on Barrancon Island on the Guaviare River The training was finished very close to the time of the massacre 104 The evidence showed that the paramilitaries landed unhampered at the San Jose del Guaviare airport which was heavily guarded by military personnel 103 Alto Naya massacre edit Another massacre took place at Alto Naya Cauca department on April 12 2001 in which an estimated 40 130 civilians were killed and thousands displaced Approximately 100 paramilitaries from the Frente Calima Calima Front participated in the killings 105 106 The first victim was a 17 year old girl named Gladys Ipia whose head and hands were cut off with a chain saw Next six people were shot while eating at a local restaurant Another man was chopped into pieces and burned A woman had her abdomen ripped open with a chainsaw An indigenous leader named Cayetano Cruz was cut in half with a chainsaw 105 107 108 The paramilitaries lined up the villagers in the middle of the town and asked people if they knew any guerrillas If they answered no they were hacked to death with machetes 109 Many of the bodies were dismembered and strewn piecemeal around the area making it difficult to gain an accurate body count and identify victims Between 4 000 and 6 000 people were displaced as they fled the area during and following the violence 105 108 Despite repeated warnings over the preceding two weeks that such an attack was about to occur the Colombian military refused to provide protection for the villagers And although the massacre went on for more than three days the nearby Third Brigade did not show up until after it was over Yet when the FARC attempted to take over a town in neighboring Narino the military responded within three hours 105 106 Some of the villagers traveled to the Colombian Army s Third Brigade an hour away The Cauca People s Defender Victor Javier Melendez notified the military that a massacre was occurring on the morning of April 13 He received no response 105 The Colombian Public Advocate s office stated it is inexplicable how approximately 500 paramilitaries could carry out an operation of this type without being challenged in any way especially since the area that these men entered is only twenty minutes from the village of Timba where a base operated by the Colombian Army is located and has been staffed since March 30 of this year 107 Betoyes Massacre edit Another massacre took place in Betoyes Arauca department in early May 2003 Several people belonging to the indigenous Guahibo community were killed and over 300 people fled Three girls aged 11 12 and 15 were raped Another 16 year old pregnant mother Omaira Fernandez was raped and then had her womb cut open and the fetus ripped out which they then hacked up with a machete They then dumped the bodies into the river An Amnesty International reported on June 4 2003 that the Colombian army s 18th Brigade s Navos Pardo Battalion fully supported the AUC in carrying out the massacre in Betoyes in January 2003 witnesses said that the AUC armband of one attacker slipped to reveal the words Navos Pardo Battalion printed on the uniform beneath 110 Forced displacement edit nbsp Displaced Embera Catios Indian girl in Cazuca near Bogota Colombia Paramilitary violence is responsible for most of the displacement in the country s ongoing conflict More than 5 million people out of Colombia s total population of approximately 40 million have been internally displaced since 1985 making it the country with the second highest internally displaced population in the world after Sudan Over 3 million people have been displaced after President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002 with over 300 000 displaced in 2005 alone 111 112 Paramilitary groups have been held responsible for the largest portion of displacement 113 114 In the years 2000 and 2001 paramilitaries were blamed for 48 percent and 53 percent of forced displacement respectively 113 The displacement is not only a side effect of the civil conflict but also a deliberate policy to remove people from their territories so that the land can be taken by wealthy elites multinational corporations and criminal syndicates as well as to attack the civilian support base for the guerrillas 114 115 Social cleansing edit Paramilitary groups often with the support of local merchants the Colombian military and local police have engaged in extensive social cleansing operations against homeless people drug addicts orphaned children and other people they deem socially undesirable 116 117 118 119 120 In 1993 alone at least 2190 street children were murdered many of whom were killed by agents of the state An estimated 5 people per day fell victim to social cleansing operations in 1995 121 Financing editDrug trade edit The downfall of the Medellin and Cali Cartels in the 1990s created an opening for paramilitary groups which controlled northern Colombia the key transnational smuggling route to take over the international cocaine trade 122 In 2001 Colombian government sources estimated that at least 40 of all cocaine exports from Colombia were controlled by far right paramilitary groups while only 2 5 were controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC 83 Financing by U S corporations edit Chiquita Brands International edit From 1997 to 2004 Chiquita Brands International gave over 1 7 million to the AUC over 825 000 of which was given after the U S State Department had listed the AUC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization Families of some of the victims filed a class action lawsuit Doe v Chiquita Brands International in 2007 The indictment alleges that the payments were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation and that by no later than September 2000 they were aware that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization Separate charges were also filed alleging that in 2001 using a Colombian port owned and operated by Banadex a subsidiary of Chiquita the company transported 3 400 AK 47 rifles and 4 million rounds of ammunition which were destined for the AUC Mario Iguaran Colombia s attorney general in 2007 said that he would seek extradition for several Chiquita executives as part of the weapons smuggling investigation Lawyers from the U S Department of Justice learned of Chiquita s relationship with the AUC in 2003 They told Chiquita executives that the payments were illegal and ordered them to stop After receiving the order Chiquita made at least 19 more payments Chiquita representatives said that they were only financing terrorist organizations in good faith for the protection of their employees To date none of the Chiquita executives have been indicted for terrorism however the company did receive a fine of 25 million 59 123 124 125 126 The plea deal was negotiated by Eric Holder who was then an attorney with the law firm Covington amp Burling which represented Chiquita Brands 127 Drummond Coal edit In the late 1980s Alabama based Drummond Coal began to expand into new markets due to the deregulation of global capital As part of this expansion they purchased the Pribbenow coal mine in Colombia as well as a Caribbean port to ship the coal They increased production at the mine by 20 million tons annually turning it into one of the largest coal mining operations in the world It made up the largest share of Drummond s 1 7 billion in annual revenues 128 Since it started operating in the early 1990s Drummond s 215 mile railway has been repeatedly attacked by the FARC EP 129 There is evidence that right wing paramilitaries were hired by Drummond to guard the rail lines 126 In 2001 union activists working at Drummond s Colombian operations began receiving frequent death threats In February of that year AUC paramilitaries broke into the home of union organizer Candido Mendez and killed him in front of his family This was followed by a series of killings in March 130 The Coca Cola Company edit In July 2001 four lawsuits were filed against The Coca Cola Company by the International Labor Rights Fund ILRF and the United Steel Workers of America on behalf of Sinaltrainal a union representing food and beverage workers in Colombia five individuals who had been tortured or unlawfully detained for union activities and the estate of murdered union activist Isidro Gil The plaintiffs alleged that Coca Cola bottlers contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered tortured unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders Coca Cola does not deny that the murders and attacks on unionists took place at their bottling facilities nor did they deny that the paramilitaries responsible for the killings were being paid by the bottlers but they claimed that they could not be held liable because they are not in direct control of the bottling plants In March 2001 district judge Jose E Martinez decided in Miami that Coca Cola could not be held liable claiming they did not directly control the bottling plants but allowed the case against the bottling companies to proceed forward 131 132 Political activities editSee also Colombian parapolitics scandal The Colombian parapolitics scandal or parapolitica in Spanish a combination of the words paramilitar and politica refers to the 2006 present Colombian congressional scandal in which several congressmen and other politicians have been indicted for colluding with the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia AUC a paramilitary group which is responsible for killing thousands of Colombian civilians In February 2007 Colombian Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo suggested another term parauribismo indicating that the scandal was mainly affecting officials or political allies of President Alvaro Uribe s administration 133 By April 17 2012 139 members of Congress were under investigation Five governors and 32 lawmakers including Mario Uribe Escobar President Uribe s cousin and former President of Congress were convicted 134 See also editTriple A American Anti communist Alliance United Self Defense Forces of Colombia Carlos Castano Colombian Armed Conflict Plan Colombia Colombia United States relations Colombian parapolitics scandal Conservatism in Colombia Illegal drug trade in Colombia Militia organizations in the United States Brazilian police militiasReferences editFootnotes edit Basta Ya Memoria de Guerra y Dignidad PDF Centro de Memoria Historica 2013 COLOMBIA International Criminal Court Scrutinises Paramilitary Crimes Inter Press Service August 27 2008 Retrieved November 1 2022 Rempe Dennis M Winter 1995 Guerrillas Bandits and Independent Republics US Counter insurgency Efforts in Colombia 1959 1965 Small Wars and Insurgencies 6 3 304 327 doi 10 1080 09592319508423115 Archived from the original on March 30 2010 a b Rempe 1995 Archived from the original on March 30 2010 Retrieved 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April 3 2000 a b c d e Liam Craig Best Rowan Shingler The Alto Naya Massacre Another Paramilitary Outrage Archived 2005 02 13 at the Wayback Machine Colombia Journal May 21 2001 a b Hristov 2009 p 191 Archived 2016 12 22 at the Wayback Machine a b HRW Sept 2001 2 3 Villa and Cauca Third Brigade Archived 2017 04 09 at the Wayback Machine a b Patricia Dahl The Massacre at Alto Naya permanent dead link Colombia Journal February 23 2004 Scott Wilson Colombian Massacre Large Brutal Chain Saws Used By Paramilitaries In Village Killing Washington Post April 21 2001 Eric Fichtl The Massacre at Betoyes permanent dead link Colombia Journal August 4 2003 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IDMC Colombia Government Peace Process Cements Injustice for IDPs Archived 2011 09 21 at the Wayback Machine 30 June 2006 accessed 23 August 2010 p 4 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IDMC Profile of Internal Displacement Colombia Archived 2012 10 15 at the Wayback Machine 26 May 2005 accessed 23 August 2010 a b Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IDMC Profile of Internal Displacement Colombia Archived 2012 10 15 at the Wayback Machine 26 May 2005 accessed 23 August 2010 p 36 39 a b Hristov 2009 p 76 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IDMC Colombia Government Peace Process Cements Injustice for IDPs Archived 2011 09 21 at the Wayback Machine 30 June 2006 accessed 23 August 2010 p 32 Michael Taussig 2004 Law in a Lawless Land Diary of limpieza in Colombia New Press Elizabeth F Schwartz Winter 1995 1996 Getting Away with Murder Social Cleansing in Colombia and the Role of the United States The University of Miami Inter American Law Review 27 2 381 420 Lovisa Stannow 1996 Social cleansing in Colombia Archived 2011 08 18 at the Wayback Machine MA Thesis Simon Fraser University Alfredo Molano 2005 The Dispossessed Chronicles of the desterrados of Colombia Haymarket p 113 Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Colombia Activities of a Colombian social cleansing group known as Jovenes del Bien and any state efforts to deal with it 2 April 2004 Schwartz op cit pp 387 388 Vanda Felbab Brown 2010 Shooting up counterinsurgency and the war on drugs Brookings Institution Press pp 95 96 ISBN 978 0 8157 0328 0 Archived from the original on July 1 2014 Retrieved October 13 2016 Michael Evans April 16 2007 Para politics Goes Bananas The Nation Archived from the original on July 17 2010 Retrieved August 22 2010 Garry Leech March 19 2007 Slap on the Wrist for Corporate Sponsors of Terrorism Colombia Journal permanent dead link Chiquita s Board Members Total Identification Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawers Collective Archived 2008 08 12 at the Wayback Machine a b Hristov 2009 p 78 Gray Kevin October 2007 The Banana War International News Archived from the original on October 11 2008 Retrieved October 7 2011 Leech 2009 p 194 Chomsky Aviva 2008 Linked labor histories New England Colombia and the making of a global working class Duke University Press p 278 ISBN 978 0 8223 4190 1 Retrieved October 13 2016 Chomsky Aviva 2008 Linked labor histories New England Colombia and the making of a global working class Duke University Press pp 278 279 ISBN 978 0 8223 4190 1 Retrieved October 13 2016 Aram Roston September 2001 It s the Real Thing Murder The Nation Archived from the original on October 12 2012 Retrieved August 24 2010 Madeline Baran November December 2003 Stop Killer Coke Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca Cola bottling plants in Colombia Dollars amp Sense Archived from the original on July 10 2010 Retrieved August 22 2010 in Spanish Parapolitica genero enfrentamiento entre congresistas y ministros El Tiempo February 28 2007 Accessed March 3 2007 This article is Left Leaning and should be taken with a grain of salt because most of the cites are decades old and with new information that is being presented today is outdated 37 Colombian congressmen 5 governors convicted for ties to paramilitaries Colombia Reports May 16 2012 Archived from the original on May 19 2012 Retrieved May 16 2012 Bibliography edit Aviles William 2006a Global Capitalism Democracy and Civil Military Relations in Colombia SUNY Press ISBN 978 0 7914 6699 5 Brittain James J 2010 Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia The Origin and Direction of the FARC EP Pluto Press ISBN 978 0 7453 2876 8 Hristov Jasmin 2009 Blood and capital the paramilitarization of Colombia Ohio University Press ISBN 978 0 89680 267 4 HRW 1996 Colombia s Killer Networks The Military Paramilitary Partnership and the United States Human Rights Watch Also in Spanish here HRW Sept 2001 The Sixth Division Military paramilitary Ties and U S Policy in Colombia Human Rights Watch Kirk Robin 2003 More Terrible Than Death Massacres drugs and America s war in Colombia Public Affairs pp 149 151 ISBN 978 1 58648 104 9 Livingstone Grace 2004 Inside Colombia Drugs Democracy and War Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 3443 5 Nussio Enzo 2011 Learning from Shortcomings the Demobilization of Paramilitaries in Colombia Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 6 2 88 92 doi 10 1080 15423166 2011 487780731626 S2CID 110608128 Rempe Dennis M Winter 1995 Guerrillas Bandits and Independent Republics U S Counter insurgency Efforts in Colombia 1959 1965 Small Wars and Insurgencies 6 3 304 327 doi 10 1080 09592319508423115 Archived from the original on March 30 2010 Richani Nazih 2002 Systems of Violence the political economy of war and peace in Colombia SUNY Press Romero Mauricio 2003 Paramilitares y autodefensas 1982 2003 in Spanish IEPRI Planeta Scott Peter Dale 2003 Drugs oil and war the United States in Afghanistan Colombia and Indochina Rowman and Littlefield ISBN 978 0 7425 2522 1 Stokes Doug 2005 America s Other War Terrorizing Colombia Zed Books ISBN 978 1 84277 547 9 Tate Winifred 2001 Paramilitaries in Colombia PDF Brown Journal of World Affairs Brown University 8 Part 1 Archived from the original PDF on April 9 2011 Retrieved May 24 2016 Further reading editBooks edit Steven Dudley January 2004 Walking Ghosts Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 93303 2 Duzan Maria Jimena Peter Eisner translator 1994 Death Beat A Colombian Journalist s Life Inside the Cocaine Wars Harper Collins ISBN 978 0 06 017057 8 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a author2 has generic name help Alejandro Garcia 2009 Los crimenes de estado y su gestion Dos experiencias postraumaticas y una aproximacion a la Justicia Penal Internacional Investigacion y debate in Spanish Vol 33 CYAN ISBN 978 84 8319 430 0 Jennifer S Holmes Sheila Amin Gutierrez de Pineres Kevin M Curtin 2008 Guns drugs and development in Colombia University of Texas Press ISBN 978 0 292 71871 5 Jasmin Hristov 2009 Blood and capital the paramilitarization of Colombia Ohio University Press ISBN 9780896802674 Harvey F Kline 2007 Chronicle of a failure foretold the peace process of Colombian president Andres Pastrana University of Alabama Press ISBN 978 0 8173 5410 7 Leech Garry 2002 Killing Peace Colombia s Conflict and the Failure of U S Intervention Information Network of the Americas INOTA ISBN 978 0 9720384 0 9 Mario A Murillo Jesus Rey Avirama 2004 Colombia and the United States war unrest and destabilization Seven Stories Press pp 86 104 ISBN 978 1 58322 606 3 Pardo Rueda Rafael 2004 La Historia de las Guerras in Spanish Ediciones B Vergara ISBN 978 958 97405 5 2 Pastrana Andres 2005 La Palabra Bajo Fuego in Spanish Editorial Planeta Alberto Ramirez Santos ed 2002 Las Verdaderas Intenciones de los Paramilitares in Spanish Intermedio Editores Mauricio Romero 2003 Paramilitary Groups in Contemporary Colombia In Diane Davis Anthony Pereira eds Irregular Armies and Their Role in Politics and State Formation Cambridge University Press Mauricio Romero Leon Valencia Corporacion Nuevo Arco Iris 2007 Mauricio Romero ed Parapolitica la ruta de la expansion paramilitar y los acuerdos politicos in Spanish Intermedio Editores ISBN 978 958 709 709 2 Bert Ruiz October 1 2001 The Colombian Civil War McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 1084 2 Rebeca Toledo Teresa Gutierrez Sara Flounders Andy McInerney eds 2003 War in Colombia Made in U S A ISBN 978 0965691697 Brenda K Uekert 1995 Rivers of blood a comparative study of government massacres Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 275 95165 8 Journal articles edit Winifred Tate 2001 Paramilitaries in Colombia PDF Brown Journal of World Affairs Brown University 8 PART 1 163 176 Archived from the original PDF on April 9 2011 Retrieved August 21 2010 Doug Stokes October 2003 Why the End of the Cold War Doesn t Matter The US War of Terror in Colombia PDF Review of International Studies 29 4 569 585 doi 10 1017 s0260210503005692 JSTOR 20097877 S2CID 143862200 Jennifer S Easterday 2009 Deciding the fate of complementarity a Colombian case study PDF Arizona Journal of International amp Comparative Law 26 1 Archived from the original PDF on July 24 2011 Retrieved August 21 2010 Novelli Mario 2010 Education conflict and social in justice insights from Colombia Educational Review 62 3 271 285 doi 10 1080 00131911 2010 503598 S2CID 144571085 Doug Stokes Summer 2001 Better lead than bread A critical analysis of the US s plan Colombia Civil Wars 4 2 59 78 doi 10 1080 13698240108402469 S2CID 143691910 Nazih Richani Autumn 2005 Multinational Corporations Rentier Capitalism and the War System in Colombia Latin American Politics and Society 47 3 113 144 doi 10 1353 lap 2005 0037 JSTOR 4490420 S2CID 154858035 Olga Martin Ortega 2008 Deadly Ventures Multinational Corporations and Paramilitaries in Colombia PDF Revista Electronica de Estudios Internacionales 16 permanent dead link Sam Goffman September October 2005 Colombia Paramilitaries Get Sweetheart Deal NACLA Report on the Americas 39 2 50 51 Coercion Incorporated Paramilitary Colombia NACLA Report on the Americas 42 4 11 July August 2009 doi 10 1080 10714839 2009 11722226 S2CID 218602156 Nazih Richani September October 2000 the Paramilitary Connection NACLA Report on the Americas 34 2 38 doi 10 1080 10714839 2000 11722632 S2CID 185226968 Jasmin Hristov July August 2009 Legalizing the Illegal Paramilitarism in Colombia s Post Paramilitary Era NACLA Report on the Americas 42 4 12 39 doi 10 1080 10714839 2009 11722227 S2CID 157464898 Gary Leech September October 2004 U S Colombia Demobilizing the AUC NACLA Report on the Americas 38 2 42 44 Marc Chernick March April 1998 The paramilitarization of the war in Colombia NACLA Report on the Americas 31 5 28 doi 10 1080 10714839 1998 11722772 Anastasia Moloney September October 2004 Displaced in Colombia NACLA Report on the Americas 38 2 9 12 doi 10 1080 10714839 2004 11722391 S2CID 185059911 Lesley Gill July August 2009 Durable Disorder Parapolitics in Barrancabermeja NACLA Report on the Americas 42 4 20 39 doi 10 1080 10714839 2009 11725457 S2CID 157886731 Hanson Heather Penna Rogers Romero May June 2005 The Failure of Colombia s Democratic Security NACLA Report on the Americas 38 6 22 41 doi 10 1080 10714839 2005 11722371 S2CID 157101522 Forrest Hylton May June 2006 Politics as Organized Crime in Colombia NACLA Report on the Americas 39 6 4 38 doi 10 1080 10714839 2006 11722327 S2CID 157998433 Nazih Richani 2007 Caudillos and the Crisis of the Colombian State fragmented sovereignty the war system and the privatisation of counterinsurgency in Colombia Third World Quarterly 28 2 403 417 doi 10 1080 01436590601153937 S2CID 153576077 Vanda Felbab Brown 2005 The Coca Connection Conflict and Drugs in Colombia and Peru Journal of Conflict Studies 25 2 Retrieved August 26 2010 permanent dead link Government NGO Reports edit Body count mentalities Colombia s False Positives Scandal Declassified National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 266 National Security Archive January 7 2009 Paramilitaries as Proxies Declassified evidence on the Colombian army s anti guerrilla allies National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 166 National Security Archive October 16 2005 Documents Implicate Colombian Government in Chiquita Terror Scandal Company s Paramilitary Payoffs made through Military s Convivir National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 217 National Security Archive March 29 2007 see also Mas sospechas de nexos entre paras y militares revelan reportes de la CIA y Embajada de E U 3 Archived July 17 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Truth about Triple A U S Document Implicates Current Former Colombian Army Commanders in Terror Operation National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 223 National Security Archive July 1 2007 Colombian Paramilitaries and the United States Unraveling the Pepes Tangled Web National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 243 National Security Archive February 17 2008 Conspiracy of Silence Colombia the United States and the Massacre at El Salado National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 287 National Security Archive September 24 2009 The United States vs Rito Alejo del Rio Ambassador Cited Accused Colombian General s Reliance on Death Squads Systematic Support of Paramilitaries Pivotal to his Military Success National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 327 National Security Archive September 29 2010 Trujillo Declassified Documenting Colombia s tragedy without end National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 259 National Security Archive October 5 2008 Volume III Conditioning Security Assistance in War in Colombia Guerrillas Drugs and Human Rights in U S Colombia Policy 1988 2002 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No 69 National Security Archive May 3 2002 Kim Cragan Bruce Hoffman Arms Trafficking and Colombia RAND Corporation 2003 The Ties That Bind Colombia and Military Paramilitary Links Human Rights Watch February 2000 The Sixth Division Military paramilitary Ties and U S Policy in Colombia Human Rights Watch September 2001 Breaking the Grip Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia Human Rights Watch November 17 2008 Paramilitaries Heirs The New Face of Violence in Colombia Human Rights Watch February 2010 Colombia Fear and Intimidation The dangers of human rights work Amnesty International September 2006 Colombia The Paramilitaries in Medellin Demobilization or Legalization Amnesty International August 31 2005 Amnesty International Colombia Barrancabermeja A city under siege 1 May 1999 The Other Half of the Truth Searching for Truth Justice and Reparations for Colombia s Victims of Paramilitary Violence Latin American Working Group June 2008 The Wrong Road Latin American Working Group July 2003 Colombia 2005 Report Archived July 28 2020 at the Wayback Machine UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Spanish and English News magazines edit Constanza Vieira July 11 2010 Paramilitaries Don t Want to Take the Blame Alone Inter Press Service Archived from the original on July 14 2010 Retrieved August 22 2010 Conmigo extraditaron la verdad Salvatore Mancuso en entrevista exclusiva Cambio in Spanish May 2010 Archived from the original on February 27 2012 Retrieved August 31 2010 Constanza Vieira February 4 2010 Same Paramilitary Abuses New Faces New Names Inter Press Service Archived from the original on June 21 2010 Retrieved August 20 2010 Organized crime and the state Center for International Policy November 18 2009 Archived from the original on May 25 2011 Retrieved August 31 2010 Gustavo Gomez September 28 2008 Mancuso dio una lucha que hemos debido dar todos los cordobeses Semana in Spanish Archived from the original on January 19 2011 Retrieved August 31 2010 Constanza Vieira April 1 2008 Paramilitarism Alive and Well Inter Press Service Archived from the original on June 10 2011 Retrieved August 20 2010 Bill Conroy May 18 2008 Money Laundering amp Murder in Colombia Official Documents Point to DEA Complicity Narco News Michael Evans April 16 2007 Para politics Goes Bananas The Nation Archived from the original on July 17 2010 Retrieved August 22 2010 Oil Palm Plantations on Afro Colombian Lands Dollars amp Sense July August 2007 Original in Spanish Oil Palm Plantations on Afro Colombian Lands An Exchange Dollars amp Sense Steven Ambrus Spring 2007 Dominion of Evil Amnesty Magazine Amnesty International Archived from the original on February 20 2011 Retrieved August 21 2010 Robert Verkaik July 22 2006 BP pays out millions to Colombian farmers The Independent Archived from the original on December 16 2008 Constanza Vieira April 10 2006 New Jobs for Paramilitaries Inter Press Service Archived from the original on June 10 2011 Retrieved August 20 2010 Christian Parenti May 25 2006 Colombia s Deep Divide June 12 2006 issue The Nation Archived from the original on October 12 2012 Retrieved August 24 2010 Bill Conroy January 9 2006 Leaked Memo Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries Narco News Mitchell Chip May 2005 Along for the Ride Colombia s paramilitaries are getting a pass with a wink from Washington The Progressive Luis Gomez June 16 2003 We Don t Negotiate with Terrorists United States Officials Had Brunch with the Colombian Paramilitaries Last Month Narco News Jeremy Bigwood April 8 2003 Doing the US s Dirty Work The Colombian Paramilitaries and Israel Narco News Madeline Baran November December 2003 Stop Killer Coke Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca Cola bottling plants in Colombia Dollars amp Sense Tristan Adie May June 2002 U S Escalates Colombia s Dirty War International Socialist Review No 23 Archived from the original on July 15 2010 Retrieved August 22 2010 External links editAUC Official Website mirror from Archive org Wayback Machine in Spanish Colombia Human Rights Watch Colombia Journal Archived July 17 2009 at the Wayback Machine Alto Comisionado para la Paz Spanish Colombia Program Center for International Policy Colombia Third World Traveller BP in Colombia Sourcewatch Colombia Solidarity Campaign Who are the victims The aftermath of violence in Colombia Former combatants in Colombia s internal armed conflict spent two years painting their experiences They face difficult decisions about what to remember what to forget and how to forgive Movies edit Impunity The Film Film about the AUC Little Voices Pequenas Voces An animated movie about the vision of children in the war in Colombia Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Right wing paramilitarism in Colombia amp oldid 1182992567, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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