Pubdate: Tue, 17 Oct 2006
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Section: Page A14
Copyright: 2006 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Juan Forero, Washington Post Foreign Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

IN COLOMBIA, A DUBIOUS DISARMAMENT

Demobilized Paramilitaries Are Sidestepping Justice, Critics And Victims Say

BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia -- In the midst of a relentless conflict, 
Colombia's government and its ally, the Bush administration, are 
hailing the demobilization of 32,000 fighters from right-wing 
paramilitary groups -- a disarmament that authorities here say is 
larger than any of those that closed out Central America's civil wars 
in the 1990s.

But another, far more critical picture of the disarmament has emerged 
in recent months, drawn from the accounts of rights groups, victims 
of Colombia's murky, drug-fueled conflict, and even a report from the 
Attorney General's Office. Paramilitary commanders, according to 
these accounts, have killed hundreds of people in violation of a 
cease-fire, trafficked cocaine and stolen millions of dollars from 
state institutions they had infiltrated.

A handful of lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also voiced concerns 
about the disarmament, which is partly funded by the United States.

"The demobilization process has been as much about avoiding justice 
and consolidating ill-gotten gains as it has been about disarming the 
paramilitaries," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking 
member of the subcommittee on foreign operations. "The government 
needs to stop appeasing the leaders of these outlaw militias and 
listen more to their victims."

Critics acknowledge that the disarmament has yielded benefits. It has 
removed a loose confederation of paramilitary militias from a 
42-year-old war, leaving the state facing one powerful Marxist rebel 
organization and a second, much weaker guerrilla group. It has also 
lowered Colombia's homicide rate, officials here say, and given 
President Alvaro Uribe's government leverage in its efforts to prod 
the guerrillas to the negotiating table.

Now, two months after the last paramilitary fighter laid down his 
weapon in a carefully choreographed ceremony, Colombian officials are 
pledging to conduct exhaustive investigations of paramilitary 
atrocities and launch trials of the militias' most bloodthirsty 
commanders. They say the proceedings will bring justice and 
recompense for thousands of families who lost relatives or land to 
the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, AUC.

But in communities hit hard by paramilitary violence, including this 
grimy, oil-refining city in northern Colombia, victims are 
incredulous about the government's lofty claims. Once fearful that 
speaking out could get them killed, they are increasingly organized 
and assertive. And they are sharply criticizing a process that they 
say is tilted more toward whitewashing crimes than punishing perpetrators.

"The victims haven't had a voice," said Jaime PeA+/-a, whose son, 
Jaime Yesid, 16, was killed by paramilitaries during a 1998 massacre 
here. "How can there be reparations and reconciliation if we don't 
know the truth and if there isn't any justice?"

Across Colombia, victims and rights groups have been shaken by 
revelations in the press about paramilitary-related outrages, from 
wealthy commanders patronizing elegant stores in shopping malls to 
disclosures of paramilitary ties to Colombia's Congress.

In the latest scandal, one of the more powerful paramilitary 
commanders, Rodrigo Tovar, recruited peasants to play the part of 
paramilitary fighters in demobilization ceremonies, according to a 
29-page internal investigative report by the Attorney General's 
Office. The report, based on records that were kept in Tovar's 
computer and that detailed crimes committed by his paramilitary unit, 
was first disclosed in El Tiempo, the country's leading newspaper.

According to its findings, a special bank account was set up to 
disburse money to unemployed peasants so they could "pass themselves 
off as militiamen, the more the better."

Tovar, the report continues, "gives instructions so that they are 
ready for demobilization day, that they know how to march, sing the 
hymn [of the AUC] and respond to prosecutors' questions." At the same 
time, Tovar ordered underlings to make sure some bands of fighters 
remain armed to guard "vulnerable zones."

Tovar's hit men killed 558 people in one coastal province, Atlantico, 
at the same time he was participating in disarmament negotiations, 
according to the report. The victims included shopkeepers who failed 
to deliver extortion payments, leftist activists, common criminals 
and even a university professor. The report says that "men, women, 
children and passersby from all social and professional levels have 
become victimized."

Tovar kept detailed records of cocaine shipments to the United States 
and Europe, the Attorney General's Office said. The office's report 
also recounted how rogue police units took payoffs to permit cocaine 
deliveries and how Tovar helped senators and congressmen close to him 
win reelection.

In this city in a key region of the mighty Magdalena River, 
paramilitary fighters entered with fury in 2000, rooting out 
guerrillas and killing their supporters. Caught in the crossfire were 
villagers and the residents of Barrancabermeja, where lush 
neighborhoods filled with fruit trees and tropical birds sprawl over 
the hillsides.

In a massacre here in 1998, paramilitaries kidnapped 32 people at 
gunpoint. Twenty-five disappeared, and seven were later found dead. 
Pena still chokes up as he recalls how he looked out his window to 
see two gunmen abducting his son.

A neighbor, Luz Almanza, tears up as she recounts how her husband, 
Ricky Nelson Garcia, was also led away for good that night. Luz 
Marina Lopez, a shop owner, can barely keep her composure when she 
tells how her 20-year-old twins, a son and a daughter, were killed in 
the same incident.

All that the victims' relatives ever learned was that the 
paramilitaries suspected the neighborhood of close ties to the guerrillas.

"What I want from the state is to know what happened to these 
people," Almanza said. "What we want is for them to tell us the truth."

Under the government's Justice and Peace Law, approved by Congress 
last year, generous benefits were granted to commanders accused of 
atrocities in exchange for disarming units of fighters. The 
government also announced that those who participated in the process 
would not be extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking 
charges -- the paramilitary commanders' greatest fear.

In the face of international outrage, Colombia's highest court struck 
down some provisions in May and made the terms more stringent. Most 
of the commanders, including Tovar, also turned themselves in and are 
now housed in a spacious facility in Antioquia province.

Under the revised law, commanders must pay reparations to victims out 
of both their legal and ill-gotten gains. And they must confess to 
their crimes -- losing benefits if prosecutors later determine that 
they lied or omitted information.

"What we want is that there be a recognition of the victims' right to 
truth, to justice and reparation," said Eduardo Pizarro, who heads 
the government's reparations commission. "And to guarantee that it 
won't happen again."

Still, the law shields the commanders from serving time in prison, 
and they remain protected from extradition.

Though officials in Uribe's government pledge to come down hard on 
commanders, the state appears ill-prepared to follow through, said 
Sergio Jaramillo, director of the Ideas for Peace analysis group in 
Bogota. There are only 20 prosecutors to investigate 2,695 
paramilitary commanders who are believed to have committed atrocities.

Asked about the capacity of his office to investigate, Mario Iguaran, 
the attorney general, said in an interview: "You'd have to say it's 
not sufficient. The Justice and Peace Law did not create positions 
for prosecutors."

The sheer complexity of the cases helps paramilitary commanders not 
only to sidestep criminal investigators but to shield their 
properties. The commanders have already claimed that they own far 
less than authorities believe they do. Determining the truth is a 
formidable task, since the properties they own are registered under 
third parties' names.

Though there are no exact figures, government officials have 
calculated that Colombian paramilitaries and drug traffickers control 
a swath of territory three times the size of New Jersey.

"The government has no clue about what these guys own, how they've 
operated for all these years, who's supported them, where their 
assets are, and it hasn't really set up an effective system to figure 
that out," said Maria McFarland, who tracks Colombia for New 
York-based Human Rights Watch.

In Barrancabermeja, groups such as the Popular Women's Organization, 
which runs soup kitchens and works on human rights issues, have no 
illusions about what the process with the paramilitaries will deliver.

Paramilitaries have slain three members of the group, including one 
this year, and its president, Yolanda Becerra, said that threats 
continue. Becerra, a slight woman who races around town meeting with 
members, said her group is still poised to lead protests and lobby 
for a tough approach to the paramilitaries.

"We're doing what we've always done -- maintain a hope for a new 
country," she said. "A people can save themselves when they're united."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman