Latin
America:
Colombian
Paramilitaries
in
Going
Out
of
Business
Sale
6/24/05
A top Colombian military commander told the Associated Press last week that leaders of the rightist paramilitary militias are hurriedly selling-off huge amounts of cocaine before they demobilize under a sweetheart deal with the Colombian government. The paramilitary leaders want to retire as rich men before they accept a proposed amnesty from the government. The paramilitaries have for nearly two decades fought in a three-cornered conflict with the leftist guerrillas of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the Colombian state. While Colombia's four-decade-old civil war predates the paramilitaries, they emerged as especially vicious players in the conflict, responsible for terrible massacres and numerous atrocities in a fight that increasingly came to be a struggle over control of coca, cocaine, and its profits. While formerly working in alliance with the Colombian military -- doing much of its dirty work -- the paramilitaries have in recent years been targeted by Bogota, although links with the Colombian military remain. They have also been targeted by Washington. At least 18 paramilitary leaders are listed as among Colombia's top cocaine traffickers, and US officials say the paramilitaries are responsible for most of the coke snorted in the US, and for assassinating politicians and killing thousands of peasants. Leaders of the paramilitaries have been involved for months in peace talks with the government, and under a plan approved Wednesday by the Colombian congress, the paramilitaries would demobilize in return for reduced prison sentences. President Alvaro Uribe is expected to sign the bill into law within a matter of days. But according to critics like Human Rights Watch, convictions would be hard to come by under the proposal. It includes provisions requiring prosecutors to file charges within 24 hours after receiving statements from demobilized paramilitaries and limits investigations to 30 days after charges are filed. "This gives benefits to people who have committed the worst crimes, and we get nothing in return," said Gina Parody, a leading congresswoman and ally of Mr. Uribe who nevertheless proposed much tougher legislation. "The message we are sending to Colombian society is that crime does pay," she told the New York Times Wednesday. With demobilization of the 13,000 soldiers in the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) set for the end of this year, the chieftains are cashing in now, said Navy chief Admiral Mauricio Soto. The AUC chiefs are emptying their warehouses ahead of turning in their guns, he said, and as a result, seizures are going through the roof. The Colombian Navy has seized 63 tons of cocaine this year, more than half belonging to the AUC, Soto said. "The paramilitaries are desperate. They urgently need to sell what they have," Soto told the AP. "They need the money, because if they are going to demobilize, what interests them is the cash." Nice transition, if they can pull it off: from war criminal to country squire. Meanwhile, back in Washington, an appropriations bill that would allocate another $700 million for Plan Colombia, the US effort to wipe out Colombian coca and cocaine that has eaten up $4 billion since 2000 -- which is now well past its five-year shelf life -- is moving through the House. Foes of the plan's heavily militarized approach and environmentally callous embrace of aerial crop eradication with herbicides will offer amendments next week aiming to pare back the amount. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) will offer an amendment to cut part of the Andean counternarcotics military assistance. And Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) will offer an amendment that will shift at least $20 million from military assistance to development assistance for Colombia. But even if those amendments passed, the US drug war in Colombia will continue essentially unchanged.
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