Pubdate: Wed, 05 Sep 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A10
Copyright: 2007 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/topics/Colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

NEW CHAPTER IN DRUG TRADE

In Wake of Colombia's U.S.-Backed Disarmament Process, 
Ex-Paramilitary Fighters Regroup Into Criminal Gangs

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's cocaine trade has never been 
controlled by a single cast of characters.

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar and other flamboyant cocaine cowboys, 
wielding billions of dollars and armies of hit men, nearly brought 
the state to its knees. Their deaths ushered in more discreet groups, 
so-called baby cartels, that outsourced trafficking and murder to 
gangs. Then came a paramilitary force that relied on cocaine to fund 
a war against Marxist rebels, a bloody phase the government says 
ended with the disarmament of militias last year.

Now, in the latest evolution of Colombia's unremitting drug trade, 
new criminal gangs led by former mid-level paramilitary commanders 
have surfaced in about half of Colombia's 32 states. Authorities here 
estimate that the groups -- steeped in violence and outfitted like 
armies -- have a combined force of anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 
fighters. As many as 17 percent of them are said to be former 
paramilitary members.

Their emergence -- outlined in interviews in two regions heavily 
affected by drug trafficking and in recent reports by the 
Organization of American States, the Colombian government and the 
United Nations -- is undermining a demobilization that authorities 
tout as having removed 32,000 fighters from a long, shadowy war.

"The danger is that these groups have a big fountain of revenue that 
comes from narco-trafficking and permits them to develop, recruit 
people and to continue affecting the population," said Sergio 
Caramagna, chief of an OAS team that monitored the three-year 
disarmament process.

The OAS document and other reports conclude that the new groups do 
not have a central command or the national reach or political 
objectives of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the 
powerful coalition of paramilitary groups that was officially 
demobilized. That organization, known by the Spanish initials AUC, 
worked closely with Colombian army units and corrupt politicians to 
erode support for leftist guerrillas, launching campaigns that killed 
thousands of civilians.

The overarching objective of the new groups is to control Colombia's 
lucrative cocaine trade, and they confront those individuals or 
groups that stand in their way. At the same time, some of the groups 
are using the same tactics that paramilitary groups were known for: 
engaging guerrillas in combat, targeting rights workers and 
displacing peasants from farmland.

Political analysts say the emergence of the groups happened because 
the government failed to adequately track mid-level commanders, some 
of whom posed as low-level fighters during demobilization ceremonies.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of those mid-level commanders saw an 
opportunity to obtain the power and influence they had never had, 
said Ivan Duque, a former paramilitary commander, and Rafael Garcia, 
a former intelligence operative convicted of collaborating with 
paramilitary groups. Those commanders were then able to appeal to 
rank-and-file fighters, who never viewed the government stipend and 
workshops that came with the disarmament as a viable alternative to a 
life of crime.

"These guys don't know anything except how to fire a gun, how to kill 
people," said Garcia. "And as long as they don't find jobs, they'll 
do what they know how to do."

In the northeastern state of Cesar, where politicians and 
paramilitary fighters formed an alliance to raid state coffers and 
rig elections, little appears to have changed. After the AUC 
demobilized, a group calling itself the Black Eagles entered the 
southern part of the state with 150 heavily armed men in December 
2005 and massacred villagers.

Reports show that group and others have since assumed control of the 
lucrative cocaine pipeline through the porous Venezuelan border. Like 
the AUC, the new groups have also tried to influence politics in the 
region ahead of next month's local elections, said Alejandra Barrios, 
director of the Bogota-based Electoral Observation Mission, which 
monitors elections. In August, one politician was slain, and others 
have been threatened.

"They call them new groups but to me they're the same old groups -- 
what's new is their name," said Alfonso Palacio, a mayoral candidate 
in the village of La Jagua, who says he's been targeted by the groups.

Government officials say the percentage of former AUC fighters in the 
new groups remains low. And Gen. Oscar Naranjo, chief of the National 
Police, said in an interview that the police, the army and federal 
prosecutors have arrested 1,700 of the fighters since March 2006. 
"For us it's a priority to combat and neutralize them," he said.

American officials, while recognizing the problem, said the new 
groups cannot be compared to the AUC of old, which the Bush 
administration says was dismantled with American aid.

"Obviously it's disappointing that everybody doesn't demobilize or 
the groups are able to continue to traffic and to harm individuals in 
Colombia," John P. Walters, the White House drug policy chief, said 
by phone from Washington. "But on the other hand, again the enormous 
achievement was to reduce the power and the capacity of what was 
operating before the demobilization process began."

Rafael Pardo, an author and former Colombian senator, says the 
government has underplayed the nature of the threat. He and others 
have said the percentage of former paramilitary fighters in the 
emerging groups could be much higher than the government contends, 
because it's likely that the AUC never actually came close to having 
32,000 members.

Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based 
organization that studies conflicts worldwide, said in a recent 
lengthy report that in some cases, the commitment of government 
forces to fighting the groups has been low because of drug-related 
corruption or because the priority remains fighting the guerrillas.

"The new generation of paramilitaries are the new face of the 
drug-trafficking business and the evolution of paramilitaries into a 
purely drug-trafficking organization," said Jeremy McDermott, author 
of the Crisis Group report. "But it's equally dangerous to 
institutions because the corruptive power of drug trafficking is as 
relevant as ever."

The developments are being watched closely by Democrats and some 
Republicans in Washington, who have already held up a free trade 
agreement with Colombia because of concerns over rights abuses and 
what they say has been a flawed demobilization process.

"The idea of the demobilization was good, but the fact that they 
could so easily regroup and get weapons, I've found a concern," said 
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations 
subcommittee on foreign operations.

Among the most troubled regions is the sparsely populated state of 
Nario, in the southwest. There, new groups have emerged to fight for 
control of drug-trafficking corridors while threatening rights 
workers and indigenous leaders, whom they accuse of ties to rebels. 
"They want to intimidate, to shut us up because we're fighting for 
our rights," said Robinson Pai, a leader in the Awa community.

Though 689 fighters from a paramilitary unit known as the Liberators 
of the South demobilized on July 30, 2005, OAS investigators found 
little change in the dynamics of the conflict in Nari?o. The number 
of homicides shot up from 491 in 2004 to 797 in 2006.

In interviews in the softly rolling mountains around the town of 
Egido, officials and poor farmers said the groups go by several 
names: New Generation, Black Eagles, the Black Hand and the Machos. 
But it's believed that their leadership, perhaps more than anywhere 
else, has remained in the hands of old paramilitary commanders.

One powerful warlord, Carlos Mario Jimnez, had participated in the 
demobilization, but authorities charged that he continued directing 
paramilitary groups from jail. President Alvaro Uribe recently ended 
special privileges that would have afforded him a light sentence for 
admitting to his crimes, and the United States is now preparing to 
extradite him.

"The government insists that the paramilitaries have demobilized and 
do not operate," said Nancy Villota, a lawyer with one of Nario's 
main human rights groups. "Our experience shows that they've not come 
back because they've simply never gone anywhere. They've always been here."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake