Pubdate: Sun, 4 May 2008
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2008 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

NEW COLOMBIA DRUG GANGS WREAK HAVOC

The Killing of a Farm Leader Who Opposed Growing Coca Suggests the
Emergence of Former Right-Wing Paramilitary Fighters.

SANTA ROSA, COLOMBIA -- In the end, getting his picture taken with
President Bush and attaining a modicum of local fame was no help to
Miguel Daza. In fact, his high profile may have been the death of him.

The young farmer was killed in a roadside ambush in February near this
mining and drug trafficking hub in north-central Colombia, apparently
by one of a new generation of criminal gangs that have emerged in the
two years since right-wing paramilitary fighters officially disbanded.

The status of the paramilitary fighters has serious ramifications for
President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative U.S. ally who famously broke up
the militias, which were playing a role in destabilizing the country.
But he has seen his presidency challenged by revelations that many of
his closest allies were tied to the right-wing gunmen.

The paramilitary groups, originally formed to defend farmers and
ranchers against leftist rebels, subsequently turned to drug
trafficking and other criminal activities, including extortion and
mass killings, prosecutors say.

The new gangs are more dispersed and lack the hierarchical structure
of their predecessors. In some areas, such as here in Bolivar state,
they have formed alliances with leftist rebels to manufacture and
transport drugs, a move that was once anathema to the fighters.

How the new criminal groups should be tagged and whether they are
growing have become matters of debate. The Uribe government prefers
the term "emerging gangs" because it conforms with its position that
paramilitarism is a thing of the past.

But critics, including human rights groups and opposition figures such
as Sen. Gustavo Petro, say the groups are wreaking the same havoc and
committing the same crimes. The government is merely "putting a new
name on the same old phenomenon," Petro said.

What is certain is that the new groups act with the same murderous
efficiency when someone such as Daza threatens their grip on an area
and its people.

Authorities theorize that members of the notorious Black Eagles killed
Daza, 37, because he had become what the drug trafficking outlaws fear
most: a rising community leader who convinced 250 poor farmers that
there was a better alternative to growing coca.

A former coca grower himself, Daza was a vocal backer of the
government's manual eradication of the plants and in frequent public
talks described coca as a "curse that must be driven from the heart of
the pueblo."

"They killed him because he created a social order that went counter
to what narco-traffickers need: social upheaval, secrecy and a
submissive society," said Leon Valencia, director of New Rainbow
Corp., a peace advocacy group based in Bogota, Colombia's capital.

Daza was the driving force behind the planting of 2,500 acres of cacao
orchards where coca once grew. The farmers association he helped
found, the Cacao Producers Assn. of Southern Bolivar, received funds
from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the
Organization of American States.

"He changed people's thinking," said Elias Bermudez, a friend whom
Daza persuaded to switch from coca to cacao. "It wasn't easy because
coca grows fast and there is always a market. But Miguel made us
conscious that there was another way."

Daza's courage and leadership were so impressive that Uribe introduced
him to Bush during the president's visit to Colombia in March 2007.
Daza startled Bush by handing him a huge cacao fruit. Bush had to ask
Uribe what the odd-looking fruit was.

"He was a beautiful son," his grief-stricken mother, Ana Cecilia Vaca,
said after a ceremony here last month in which U.S. Ambassador William
Brownfield presented her with a framed photo of Daza with Bush. "He
said meeting Mr. Bush was going to lead to great things."

Gen. Jose Roberto Leon of the Colombian National Police estimates that
there are at least 23 "emerging gangs" numbering 2,200 fighters, a
fraction of the demobilized paramilitary groups. Peace advocacy
organizations such as the International Crisis Group and Indepaz
estimate the number of gang members is at least twice that.

The best-known of the gangs is the Black Eagles, suspected of killing
Daza, which operates in the Magdalena River valley, a prime
cocaine-trafficking area. After commenting at a news conference here
that the Black Eagles had formed an unholy alliance with the leftist
rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to
process and transport drugs, Brownfield was asked how authorities knew.

"Because there is no conflict between them here," Brownfield said. "In
the regions where they are in competition for drugs and trafficking
routes, there is a lot of violence."

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said in an interview that
the government had had considerable success in bringing the gangs to
heel, killing 800 fighters and capturing 2,300 over the last two
years. In recent days, anti-narcotics police killed Victor Manuel
Mejia Munera and captured his brother Miguel, who led the so-called
Twins narco-paramilitary gang. The U.S. government had placed bounties
of up to $5 million on each.

Santos and Leon, the police general, said that violence in Colombia,
which had been in decline since Uribe took office in 2002, continued
to fall.

"We've gotten hold of the problem because we follow it so closely,"
Santos said, adding that emerging gangs should not be described as
paramilitary groups because they do not focus on extortion and looting
of public coffers, as their predecessors did.

But Petro, the senator, said in a telephone interview that the gangs
were "still killing union leaders, forming private armies to force
people off their land and issuing threats to the opposition." He said
his mother and sister recently fled the country in the face of death
threats from the Black Eagles.

Human rights groups, including Valencia's New Rainbow, said employees
were receiving a higher number of threats.

The gangs also resemble the paramilitary groups in that some
apparently work hand in hand with corrupt army units, said Mark
Schneider of the International Crisis Group in Washington. Schneider
is preparing a report on the gangs.

Last month, investigators arrested seven army officers on suspicion of
complicity with a paramilitary group called Los Paisas that has taken
root in Antioquia and Choco states.

Frustrated by a lack of jobs, hundreds of demobilized paramilitary
fighters are joining the ranks of the new criminal groups. By the
government's estimate, 25% of the gang members captured or killed in
the last two years were demobilized fighters, Schneider said.

"This relates to the incomplete nature and lack of success of
demobilization," Schneider said. "Ex-paramilitaries who are frustrated
and angry about not getting a job are easy to recruit."

But Miguel Daza wasn't so easily swayed. The promising leader had
recently enrolled in law school, commuting six hours to his classes.

Said his mother, amid sobs, "I loved him not only because he was my
son, but because he was good." 
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