{{Short description|Political paramilitary groups}} {{Use American English|date = April 2019}} {{Use mdy dates|date = April 2019}}
'''Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia''' ({{langx|es|paramilitares de derecha}}) are [[paramilitary]] groups acting [[Far-right politics|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 in Colombia]] of [[cocaine]] and other substances. The Colombian [[National Center for Historical Memory|National Centre for Historical Memory]] has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, which includes massacres, such as the [[Mapiripán massacre]], while the [[Guerrilla movements in Colombia|Guerillas]] are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2013|title=Basta Ya! Memoria de Guerra y Dignidad|url=http://centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/informes2013/bastaYa/capitulos/basta-ya-cap1_30-109.pdf|website=Centro de Memoria Historica|access-date=February 1, 2022|archive-date=January 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124162213/http://centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/informes2013/bastaYa/capitulos/basta-ya-cap1_30-109.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
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 [[left-wing|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]], as well as training from foreign governments such as Israel.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Israel’s Latin American trail of terror |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/6/5/israels-latin-american-trail-of-terror |access-date=2026-01-26 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}}</ref> Paramilitary violence today is principally targeted towards supposed left-wing insurgents and their supporters.{{citation needed|date=January 2026}}
==History==
===Plan Lazo=== [[File:William P. Yarborough2.jpg|thumb|right|250px|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 [[terrorism|terrorist]] activities against known communist proponents".''<ref>{{cite journal |first=Dennis M. |last=Rempe |date=Winter 1995 |title=Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics: US Counter-insurgency Efforts in Colombia 1959–1965 |journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=304–327 |url=http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |doi=10.1080/09592319508423115 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330101500/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |archive-date=March 30, 2010 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>'']] 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]]''.<ref name="bandits"> {{Cite web |url=http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |title=Rempe, 1995 |access-date=2010-08-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330101500/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |archive-date=2010-03-30 |url-status=live }} </ref> 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.<ref name="inside-colombia-155">Livingstone, 2004: p. 155</ref>
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:
{{blockquote|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 [[terrorism|terrorist]] activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States."<ref>Visit to Colombia, South America, by a Team from Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Warfare School, 26 Feb. 1962, Kennedy Library, Box 319, National Security Files, Special Group; Fort Bragg Team; Visit to Colombia; 3/62, "Secret Supplement, Colombian Survey Report."</ref><ref> {{cite book|title=Rogue states: the rule of force in world affairs|author=Noam Chomsky|publisher=South End Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-89608-611-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/roguestatesruleo00chom_0/page/69 69]|url=https://archive.org/details/roguestatesruleo00chom_0|url-access=registration|access-date=2016-10-13}} </ref><ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" />}}
The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as [[Marquetalia Republic#Plan Lazo|Plan Lazo]] in 1962 and called for both military operations and [[civic action program]]s 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."<ref name="bandits" /><ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /><ref name="other-war-71-72">Stokes, 2005: pp. 71-72</ref> 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.<ref name="other-war-74">Stokes, 2005: p. 74</ref>
===Law 48 of 1968=== 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 emergency|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."<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /> This decree temporarily allowed the formation of private security forces used to protect large landowners, cattle ranchers, and government officials.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /><ref name="rev-social-116-119">Brittain, 2010: pp. 116–119</ref><ref name="richani-systems-104-105">Richani, 2002: pp. 104-105</ref>
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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /> [[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."<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" />
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".<ref name="amnesty-demob-2005-pp3-4"> [https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR23/019/2005 Colombia: The Paramilitaries in Medellín: Demobilization or Legalization?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140613201823/http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR23/019/2005 |date=2014-06-13 }}, ''Amnesty International'', August 31, 2005, pp. 3-4 </ref> 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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" />
=== Triple A === {{Distinguish|Argentine Anticommunist Alliance}} Between 1978 and 1979, a far-right paramilitary organization known as the ''[[Alianza Americana Anticomunista|American Anti-Communist Alliance]]'' (also ''AAA'' or ''Triple A'') started a terror campaign against Colombian [[communist]]s, which included [[Bombing#Delivery|bombings]], [[kidnapping]]s and [[assassination]]s. 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 [[BINCI|"Charry Solano" Battalion of Intelligence and Counter-intelligence]] (BINCI) that employed the Triple A name as a covert name.<ref name="Embassy1">{{cite news|title=Document number: 1979Bogota01410 |author=U.S. Ambassador Diego Asencio |publisher=United States Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia |date=February 1979}}</ref><ref name="NSA1">{{cite news|title=The Truth about Triple-A |publisher=National Security Archive |date=2007-07-01 |author=Michael Evans}}</ref>
===Rise of paramilitaries=== {{Quote box | quote = "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." | source = [[Pablo Escobar]], head of the [[Medellin Cartel]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Schulte-Bockholt|first=Alfredo|title=The Politics of Organized Crime and the Organized Crime of Politics: a study in criminal power|publisher=Lexington|year=2006|page=95}}</ref> | width = 25% }} 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 [[money laundering|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 army|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.<ref name="chernick-para-nacla" /><ref name="rev-social-129-131">Brittain, 2010: pp. 129–131</ref><ref name="evil-hour-68-69"> {{cite book|author=Forrest Hylton|title=Evil Hour in Colombia|publisher=Verso|year=2006|isbn=978-1-84467-551-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/evilhourincolomb00hylt/page/68 68]–69|url=https://archive.org/details/evilhourincolomb00hylt|url-access=registration|access-date=2016-10-13}} </ref>
==== Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) ==== 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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii"> HRW, 1996: [https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/killer2.htm "II. History of the Military-Paramilitary Partnership"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012065408/https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/killer2.htm |date=2017-10-12 }} </ref><ref name="richani-systems-38">Richani, 2002: p.38</ref><ref name="blood-capital-65-68"> Hristov, 2009: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA65 pp. 65-68] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222063711/https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA65 |date=2016-12-22 }} </ref> By 1983, Colombian internal affairs had registered 240 political killings by MAS death squads—mostly community leaders, elected officials, and farmers.<ref>Santina, Peter "Army of terror", [[Harvard International Review]], Winter 1998/1999, Vol. 21, Issue 1</ref>
==== Asociación Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio ''(''ACDEGAM) ==== 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".<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /><ref name="brutal-hist-56">{{cite book|author=Geoff Simons|author-link=Geoff Simons|title=Colombia: A Brutal History|publisher=Saqi Books|year=2004|isbn=978-0-86356-758-2|page=56}}</ref> 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.<ref name="brutal-hist-56" /><ref name="labyrinth-247">Pearce, Jenny (May 1, 1990). 1st. ed. ''Colombia:Inside the Labyrinth''. London: Latin America Bureau. p. 247. {{ISBN|0-906156-44-0}}</ref>
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 [[IMI 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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /><ref name="blood-capital-65-68" /><ref name="brutal-hist-56" /><ref name="labyrinth-247" /><ref> ''Democracy Now!'', [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0232255 Who Is Israel's Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070314101724/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03%2F04%2F07%2F0232255 |date=2007-03-14 }} , June 1, 2000. </ref><ref name="kline-conflict-73-74">{{cite book|title=State Building and Conflict Resolution in Colombia: 1986-1994|author=Harvey F. Kline|year=1999|publisher=University of Alabama Press|pages=73–74}}</ref> 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 [[Israel]]i and [[United Kingdom|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.<ref>Colombian Security Alleges Mercenary Aid to Cartels. August 29, 1989, ''Washington Post Foreign Service''</ref>
==== Movimiento de Restauración Nacional (MORENA) ==== 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 (Colombia)|Patriotic Union]] or any political groups that opposed drug trafficking.<ref name="hrw-killnet-ii" /><ref name="brutal-hist-56" /> 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.<ref> {{cite web|url=http://www.verdadabierta.com/justicia-y-paz/imputaciones/579-bloque-central-bolivar-frente-cacique-pipinta/1409-alias-ernesto-baez-a-un-paso-de-la-justicia-ordinaria|title=Alias Ernesto Báez, a un paso de la justicia ordinaria|access-date=16 December 2014|date=2009-07-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215225512/http://www.verdadabierta.com/justicia-y-paz/imputaciones/579-bloque-central-bolivar-frente-cacique-pipinta/1409-alias-ernesto-baez-a-un-paso-de-la-justicia-ordinaria|archive-date=2014-12-15|url-status=live}} </ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Los-nazis-del-movimiento-Tercera|title=La huella nazi|access-date=16 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216214717/http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Los-nazis-del-movimiento-Tercera|archive-date=2014-12-16|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref> {{cite web|url=http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/morena-se-destapa/12222-3|title="MORENA" SE DESTAPA|date=11 September 1989|access-date=16 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216214603/http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/morena-se-destapa/12222-3|archive-date=2014-12-16|url-status=live}} </ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bloquecentralbolivar.org/vision.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050107143051/http://www.bloquecentralbolivar.org/vision.htm|title=MOVIMIENTO ANTICOMUNISTA|archive-date=7 January 2005|access-date=16 December 2014}}</ref>
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 [[Nationalist Republican Alliance|ARENA]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}}
===Castaño family and ACCU=== In the late 1970s, the FARC-EP began gathering intelligence on ''[[Don (honorific)|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.<ref name="rev-social-116-119" /><ref name="more-terrible-149-151">Kirk, 2003: pp. 149-151</ref>
''Don'' Jesús had several sons. The oldest of these, [[Fidel Castaño|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 Castaño Gil|Carlos]] purchased over 1.2 million hectares of land in Antioquia, Córdoba, and Chocó.<ref name="rev-social-116-119" /><ref>{{cite book|title=The human condition|author=Robert Neville|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7914-4779-6|page=107|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7KLx_Po4LUMC&pg=PA107}}</ref>
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.<ref name="evil-hour-68-69" /><ref name="more-terrible-149-151" /><ref name="inside-colombia-197-198"> Livingstone, 2004: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cOU0bvG8ZGwC&pg=PA197 pp. 197-198] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222055940/https://books.google.com/books?id=cOU0bvG8ZGwC&pg=PA197 |date=2016-12-22 }} </ref>
====Los Tangueros==== 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.<ref name="more-terrible-149-151" /><ref>{{cite book|title=Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America|author=Alma Guillermoprieto|publisher=Random House, Inc.|year=2007|isbn=978-0-307-42667-3|page=26|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5oeiLqS35eQC&pg=PT26}}</ref>
By the late 1980s, numerous cattle ranchers in [[Córdoba Department|Córdoba]] were now supporting Fidel Castaño. Many of them had been forced to pay increasing amounts of extortion money to the [[Popular Liberation Army|EPL]] and other Communist guerrillas under the threat of kidnapping or having their ranches burned and their animals killed.<ref name="Romero-2003-137-143">Romero, 2003: pp. 137-143</ref> 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.<ref name="Romero-2003-137-143" />
====Foundation for the Peace of Córdoba==== In 1990, Fidel Castaño offered to disband his paramilitary forces if the [[Popular Liberation Army|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 [[19th of April Movement|AD/M19]], and local right-wing politicians were established.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" /><ref>Romero, 2003: pp. 145–149</ref>
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.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" /><ref name="Romero-2003-149-151">Romero, 2003: pp. 149–151</ref> Carlos Castaño claimed that this was the reason he decided to reactivate his family's private army.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" /><ref name="Romero-2003-149-151" />
==== Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Uraba ''(''ACCU) ==== <!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:CarlosACCU.jpg|thumb|Carlos Castaño leading the ACCU on a mission]] --> 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.<ref name="rev-social-116-119" /><ref name="richani-connection">{{Cite journal|title=the Paramilitary Connection|author=Nazih Richani|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2000|volume=34|issue=2|pages=38–41|doi=10.1080/10714839.2000.11722632|s2cid=185226968}}</ref>
===Anti-Paramilitary Decrees of 1989=== 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.<ref name="aviles-lowint-392-393">{{cite journal|title=Paramilitarism and Colombia's Low-Intensity Democracy|author=William Avilés|journal=Journal of Latin American Studies|volume= 38|issue=2|date=May 2006|pages=392–393}}</ref><ref name="hrw-drugwar-13-16"> {{cite book|title=The "Drug war" in Colombia: the neglected tragedy of political violence|author=Juan E. Méndez|publisher=Human Rights Watch|year=1990|isbn=978-0-929692-48-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/drugwarincolombi00mend/page/13 13]–16|url=https://archive.org/details/drugwarincolombi00mend|url-access=registration|access-date=2016-10-13}} </ref>
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.<ref name="hrw-drugwar-13-16" /> 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.<ref name="aviles-lowint-392-393" /><ref>{{cite book|title=Colombia: the genocidal democracy|author=Javier Giraldo|publisher=Common Courage Press|year=1996|isbn=978-1-56751-086-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/colombiagenocida0000gira/page/94 94]|url=https://archive.org/details/colombiagenocida0000gira/page/94}}</ref>
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.<ref name="hrw-drugwar-13-16" /> The police force was mostly assigned to raiding drug laboratories and the offices of drug trafficking organizations, rather than confronting the paramilitaries directly.<ref name="aviles-lowint-392-393" />
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.<ref name="aviles-lowint-392-393" /><ref name="hrw-drugwar-13-16" /><ref>[[Washington Office on Latin America]], ''Colombia Besieged : Political Violence and State Responsibility'' (Washington, DC, 1989), p. 82</ref>
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 [[La Rochela massacre|murder of two judges and ten government investigators]] at La Rochela, [[Santander Department|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.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" />
===Armed Forces Directive No. 200-05/91=== In 1990, the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U.S. Embassy's Military Group, [[U.S. Southern Command]], the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)]], and the [[CIA|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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-iii" /> Advice was also solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence, but the U.S. proposals were ultimately selected by the Colombian military.<ref name="hrw-killnet-appa" />
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.<ref name="hrw-killnet-appa"> HRW, 1996: [https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killerapendixa.htm "Appendix A: Colombian Armed Forces Directive No. 200-05/91"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825050132/https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killerapendixa.htm |date=2017-08-25 }} </ref>
==== Controversy surrounding directive ==== 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|date=January 2018}} In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a "secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder".<ref name="hrw-killnet-iii" />
HRW argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to [[Plausible denial|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".<ref name="hrw-killnet-iii"> HRW, 1996: [https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer3.htm "III: The Intelligence Reorganization"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170207192430/https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer3.htm |date=2017-02-07 }} </ref>
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."<ref name="hrw-killnet-recs"> HRW, 1996: [https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer7.htm "Conclusions and Recommendations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306084031/https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer7.htm |date=2016-03-06 }} </ref>
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."<ref name="hrw-killnet-iii" />
=== Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar (Los Pepes) === {{main|Los Pepes}}
[[File:Los-PEPES-dead-man.jpg|thumb|right|300px|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.<ref name="inside-colombia-159">Livingstone, 2004: [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZWsw3xnVo0wC&pg=PA159 p. 159]</ref><ref name="nsa-pepes"> [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB243/index.htm Colombian Paramilitaries and the United States: "Unraveling the Pepes Tangled Web"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602114546/http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB243/index.htm |date=2013-06-02 }}, ''National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 243'', [[National Security Archive]], February 17, 2008 </ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Pacto con el diablo|date=February 16, 2008|work=Semana|url=http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?IdArt=109450|language=es|access-date=2010-08-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100224014533/http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?IdArt=109450|archive-date=2010-02-24|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="scott-2003-88">Scott, 2003: [https://books.google.com/books?id=2wXCvk3UDDsC&pg=PA88 p. 88]</ref> 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.<ref name="more-terrible-156-158">Kirk, 2003: pp. 156–158</ref> Members of both Colombian and U.S. government agencies (including the DEA, CIA and State Department) provided intelligence to Los Pepes.<ref name="nsa-pepes" />
Pablo Escobar complained about how the government targeted the Medellín Cartel, but did not go after paramilitaries or members of the Calí Cartel, saying: {{blockquote|Los Pepes have their torture chambers in Fidel Castaño's house <nowiki>[</nowiki>in Medellín<nowiki>]</nowiki>, 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.<ref>{{cite book|title=Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw|author=Mark Bowden|publisher=Grove Atlantic Press|isbn=978-0-8021-9757-3|page=239|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uMQ3tY2gOJYC&pg=239|date=2007-12-01}}</ref>|sign=|source=}}
=== Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada (CONVIVIR) === 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.<ref>Peter Santina; "Army of terror.", ''Harvard International Review'' Winter 1998/1999, Vol. 21, Issue 1</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Drug politics: dirty money and democracies|author=David C. Jordan|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-8061-3174-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/drugpolitics00davi/page/160 160]|url=https://archive.org/details/drugpolitics00davi|url-access=registration}}</ref><ref> {{cite book|title=Cocaine Quagmire: Implementing the U.S. Anti-Drug Policy in the North Andes-Colombia|author=Sewall H. Menzel|year=2000|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-7618-1643-0|pages=150–151|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6poIQNLKIe0C&pg=PA150|access-date=2016-10-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222065519/https://books.google.com/books?id=6poIQNLKIe0C&pg=PA150|archive-date=2016-12-22|url-status=live}} </ref><ref name="Rangel-et-al-Samper-Talks">{{cite book|title=Qué, cómo y cúando negociar con las FARC|author1=Alfredo Rangel |author2=Yezid Arteta |author3=Carlos Lozano y Medófilo Medina |publisher=Intermedio |year=2008 |pages=222–225 |language=es}}</ref>
In 1994, Decree 356 of Colombia's Ministry of Defense authorized the creation of legal paramilitary groups known as ''Servicios Especiales De Vigilancia y Seguridad 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.<ref name="amnesty-demob-2005-pp8-9"> [https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR23/019/2005 Colombia: The Paramilitaries in Medellín: Demobilization or Legalization?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140613201823/http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR23/019/2005 |date=2014-06-13 }}, ''Amnesty International'', August 31, 2005, pp. 8-9 </ref>
The governor of Antioquia, [[Álvaro Uribe|Álvaro Uribe Vélez]]—who would later become President of Colombia—was one of the primary proponents of the CONVIVIR program.<ref name="nsa-chiquita-terror"> [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB217/index.htm Documents Implicate Colombian Government in Chiquita Terror Scandal: Company's Paramilitary Payoffs made through Military's 'Convivir'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711152416/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB217/index.htm|date=2007-07-11}}, ''National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 217'', [[National Security Archive]], March 29, 2007 (see also: [http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3499952] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120928085212/http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3499952|date=2012-09-28}}[http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717155354/http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas|date=2010-07-17}}) </ref><ref name="aviles-glob-119_135">Avilés, 2006a: pp. 119;135</ref> Statistics regarding the exact number of CONVIVIR groups differ and have been considered hard to obtain.<ref name="IACHR-1999-CONVIVIR"> {{in lang|es}}[http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Colom99sp/capitulo-4e.htm Tercer Informe Sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609193640/http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Colom99sp/capitulo-4e.htm |date=2011-06-09 }}, ''Capítulo IV continuado 5. Violencia y la Violación del Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos y el Derecho Internacional Humanitario'', [[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights]], February 26, 1999 </ref> 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.<ref name="aviles-glob-119_135" /><ref name="IACHR-1999-CONVIVIR" /><ref name="richani-systems-52">Richani, 2002: p. 52</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The human condition|author=Robert Neville|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7914-4779-6|page=52|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7KLx_Po4LUMC&pg=PA52}}</ref><ref name="Romero-2003-104">Romero, 2003: p. 104</ref>
Amnesty International claims that the CONVIVIR groups committed numerous human rights abuses against civilians, working in coordination with the Colombian government and paramilitaries.<ref name="amnesty-demob-2005-pp8-9" /> 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".<ref> Colombia - The Human Rights Situation [https://www.hrw.org/spanish/inf_anual/1998/colombia.html Human Rights Watch] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100616121939/http://www.hrw.org/spanish/inf_anual/1998/colombia.html |date=2010-06-16 }} (Spanish) </ref>
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,<ref name="amnesty-demob-2005-pp8-9" /> and that CONVIVIR members could no longer be used to gather intelligence information.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" /> Many of the CONVIVIR groups simply joined up with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).<ref name="amnesty-demob-2005-pp8-9" /><ref name="blood-capital-70">Hristov, 2009: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA70 p. 70]</ref>
By the end of the decade, there had been a tenfold increase in the number of Colombian paramilitaries.<ref> {{cite book|title=Politics in the Andes: identity, conflict, reform|author1=Jo-Marie Burt|author2=Philip Mauceri|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-8229-5828-4|page=156|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iLtyTb_OboAC&pg=PA156|access-date=2016-10-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222073647/https://books.google.com/books?id=iLtyTb_OboAC&pg=PA156|archive-date=2016-12-22|url-status=live}} </ref>
== Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) == {{main|United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia}}
In April 1997, the creation of the [[United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia|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.<ref> The corridor of the bloody dispute [https://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/specials/newsid_1975000/1975157.stm BBC News Mundo] </ref> 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.<ref name="hrw-sixth-ii"> HRW, Sept. 2001: [https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/2.1.htm "II. A Pattern of Support"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305151303/https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/2.1.htm |date=2016-03-05 }} </ref>
=== 2003–2006 demobilization process === 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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010"> ''[[Human Rights Watch]]'', "[https://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/6 II. The Successor Groups: A Predictable Outcome of a Flawed Demobilization] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130604024403/http://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/6 |date=2013-06-04 }}", ''Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia'', February 2010 </ref> 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.<ref name="goffman-sweetheart">{{cite journal|title=Colombia: Paramilitaries Get Sweetheart Deal|author=Sam Goffman|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2005|volume=39|issue=2|pages=50–51}}</ref><ref name="leech-demob">{{cite news|title=The Best-Laid Plans of Presidents and War Criminals: The Unintended Outcome of Colombia's Demobilization Process|author=Garry Leech|date=May 17, 2007|work=Colombia Journal|url=http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/the-best-laid-plans-of-presidents-and-war-criminals-the-unintended-outcome-of-colombia%E2%80%99s-demobilization-process.htm}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010" />
The demobilization process was heavily criticized by national and international human rights organizations as well as by international entities,<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/15423166.2011.487780731626|title = Learning from Shortcomings: The Demobilisation of Paramilitaries in Colombia| journal=Journal of Peacebuilding & Development| volume=6| issue=2| pages=88–92|year = 2011|last1 = Nussio|first1 = Enzo|s2cid = 110608128 }}</ref> such as the Office of the [[UN High Commissioner for Human Rights]] and the [[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights]] (IACHR) of the [[Organization of American States|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.<ref name="amnesty-fear-2006" /> Colombian congresswoman [[Gina Parody]] claimed that Law 975 gave "benefits to people who have committed the worst crimes"<ref name="goffman-sweetheart" />
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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010" />
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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010" />
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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010" />
In September 2006, [[Amnesty International]] said: {{blockquote|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.<ref name="amnesty-fear-2006" />}}
In February 2010, [[Human Rights Watch]] said: {{blockquote|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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010" />}}
A 2010 United Nations report stated: {{blockquote|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.<ref> [[United Nations]], [https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34826&Cr=alston&Cr1 Colombia takes steps on killings but security forces still culpable – UN expert] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002064210/http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34826&Cr=alston&Cr1 |date=2015-10-02 }}, ''UN News Centre'', May 27, 2010 </ref>}}
A December 2014 International Crisis Group report stated: {{blockquote|...[[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 [[Urabá Antioquia|Uraba]], the Eastern Plains, the south-western departments or the [[Caribbean]] coast.<ref> International Crisis Group. "http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/colombia/053-the-day-after-tomorrow-colombia-s-farc-and-the-end-of-the-conflict.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213013210/http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/colombia/053-the-day-after-tomorrow-colombia-s-farc-and-the-end-of-the-conflict.pdf |date=2014-12-13 }} ", [http://www.crisisgroup.org CrisisGroup.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215200658/http://www.crisisgroup.org/ |date=2014-12-15 }}. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 11 December 2014. </ref>}}
===Reintegration of ex-paramilitary fighters=== 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.<ref> Nussio, Enzo. 2012. "[http://ediciones.uniandes.edu.co/index.php?Itemid=83&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=0&item_id=2898 La vida después de la desmovilización. Percepciones, emociones y estrategias de exparamilitares en Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407071539/http://ediciones.uniandes.edu.co/index.php?Itemid=83&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=0&item_id=2898 |date=2014-04-07 }} ." Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. </ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/14678802.2011.641725|title = How ex-combatants talk about personal security. Narratives of former paramilitaries in Colombia| journal=Conflict, Security & Development| volume=11| issue=5| pages=579–606|year = 2011|last1 = Nussio|first1 = Enzo|s2cid = 145179901}}</ref>
==Post-AUC successor criminal groups== 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.<ref name="BrookingsJuly2010"> Felbab-Brown, Vanda [http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0706_colombia_felbabbrown.aspx "After the Presidential Elections: The Challenges Ahead in Colombia"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100726040055/http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0706_colombia_felbabbrown.aspx |date=2010-07-26 }} , [http://www.brookings.edu/ The Brookings Institution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210001401/https://www.brookings.edu/ |date=2006-02-10 }}, 6 July 2010 </ref> 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..<ref name="HRW-World-Report-2011"> ''[[Human Rights Watch]]'', "[https://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/world-report-2011-colombia World Report 2011: Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206190759/http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/world-report-2011-colombia |date=2015-02-06 }}", ''World Report 2011'', January 2011 </ref> Others estimate their ranks may include up to 10,000 people.<ref name="BrookingsJuly2010" /><ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Rise"> ''[[Human Rights Watch]]'', "[https://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/7 III. The Rise and Growth of the Successor Groups] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407071954/http://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/7 |date=2014-04-07 }}", ''Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia'', February 2010 </ref>
Until 2011 Colombia remained the world's largest cocaine producer,<ref name="businessweek.com"> {{cite web|url=http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-12/gold-eclipses-cocaine-as-rebels-tap-colombian-mining-wealth.html|title=Gold Eclipses Cocaine as Rebels Tap Colombian Mining Wealth|author=Heather Walsh|work=Businessweek.com|access-date=16 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111024830/http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-12/gold-eclipses-cocaine-as-rebels-tap-colombian-mining-wealth.html|archive-date=2014-11-11|url-status=dead}} </ref> 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.<ref name="p. 81"/><ref> DeRouen, 2007: [https://books.google.com/books?id=nrN077AEgzMC&pg=PA14 p. 14] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140705062859/http://books.google.com/books?id=nrN077AEgzMC&pg=PA14 |date=2014-07-05 }} </ref><ref> {{cite web|url=http://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/colombia-human-rights-watch-testifies-us-senate|title=Colombia: Human Rights Watch testifies before US Senate|work=ReliefWeb|date=April 24, 2002 |access-date=16 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216213421/http://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/colombia-human-rights-watch-testifies-us-senate|archive-date=2014-12-16|url-status=live}} </ref><ref> {{cite web|url=http://www.elnortedecastilla.es/agencias/20110117/mas-actualidad/mundo/preocupacion-colombia-nuevas-bandas-paramilitares_201101171704.html|title=Preocupacin en Colombia por nuevas bandas de ex paramilitares|author=El Norte de Castilla|access-date=16 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217033353/http://www.elnortedecastilla.es/agencias/20110117/mas-actualidad/mundo/preocupacion-colombia-nuevas-bandas-paramilitares_201101171704.html|archive-date=17 December 2014|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}} </ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Christopher Brauchli |date=October 4, 2003 |title=Letting Colombia's Criminals Off Easy |newspaper=Daily Camera |location=Boulder, Colorado |via=CommonDreams |url=http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1004-03.htm |access-date=2014-05-14 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618202621/http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1004-03.htm |archive-date=2013-06-18}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Bandas emergentes, principal factor de desplazamiento forzado |date=<!-- ?? --> |newspaper=El Tiempo |url=http://m.eltiempo.com/justicia/la-amenaza-de-las-bandas-criminales/8928046 |access-date=2014-05-14 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140424233837/http://m.eltiempo.com/justicia/la-amenaza-de-las-bandas-criminales/8928046 |archive-date=2014-04-24 }}</ref><ref> {{cite web|author1=Notimex |url=http://www.excelsior.com.mx/node/717934|title=Más de mil militares y policías colombianos en nexos con el narco|work=Excélsior|access-date=16 December 2014|date=2011-02-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216204943/http://www.excelsior.com.mx/node/717934|archive-date=2014-12-16|url-status=live}} </ref>
In the early 2010s, the [[Black Eagles]], [[Los Rastrojos]], [[Los Urabeños]], Los Paisas, [[Norte del Valle Cartel#Future|Los Machos]], Renacer, [[Clan del Golfo|Los Gaitanistas]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo-322475-bacrim-se-extienden-territorio-venezolano|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606093951/http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo-322475-bacrim-se-extienden-territorio-venezolano|title=Las Bacrim se extienden a territorio venezolano|archive-date=6 June 2013|work=ElEspectador|access-date=16 December 2014|date=2012-01-23}}</ref> Nueva Generación, [[Bloque Meta]], [[Libertadores del Vichada]], [[Pedro Oliverio Guerrero|the ERPAC]], and [[The Office of Envigado]] comprised the dominant criminal and paramilitary organizations.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Rise" />
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 [[Military Forces of Colombia|security forces]], leaving only [[Los Urabeños]] with a national presence.<ref> {{cite web|url= https://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/colombia/|title= Criminal Groups|publisher= insightcrime.org|access-date= 30 November 2017|date= 2010-10-28|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171201082240/https://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/colombia/|archive-date= 2017-12-01|url-status= live}} </ref>
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.<ref name="HRW-World-Report-2011" /><ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Rise" /> 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.<ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Rise" />
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.<ref name="BrookingsJuly2010" /><ref name="HRW-World-Report-2011" /><ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Impact"> ''[[Human Rights Watch]]'', "[https://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/8 IV. The Successor Groups’ Human Rights and Humanitarian Impact] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407073507/http://www.hrw.org/en/node/88058/section/8 |date=2014-04-07 }}", ''Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia'', February 2010 </ref> 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.<ref name="HRW-World-Report-2011" /><ref name="HRW-AUC-heirs-2010-Impact" />
==Human rights violations== {{see also|White Terror (disambiguation){{!}}White Terror|Anti-communist mass killings}} The right-wing paramilitaries have been blamed for many of the human rights violations during the Colombian conflict, particularly killings of civilians.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Tate | first=Winifred | title=Paramilitaries in Colombia | journal=The Brown Journal of World Affairs |volume=8 | pages=163–175 | number=1 | date=2001 | jstor=24590184}}</ref> In 2022, the Truth Commission for Colombia concluded that paramilitaries were responsible for 45% of all killings and 52% of forced disappearances.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|publisher=ABColombia|title=Truth Commission of Colombia: Executive Summary|date=July 15, 2022|access-date=May 2, 2024|archive-date=May 2, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502222124/https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.comisiondelaverdad.co/hay-futuro-si-hay-verdad|title=Findings and Recommendations from the Colombian Truth Commission (Hallazgos y Recomendaciones de la Comisión de la Verdad de Colombia)|publisher=Truth Commission (Comisión de la Verdad)|pages=127–128|date=July 26, 2022|access-date=May 2, 2024|archive-date=May 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240511094854/https://www.comisiondelaverdad.co/hay-futuro-si-hay-verdad|url-status=live}}</ref> During some years of the conflict, the paramilitaries and state agents were responsible for approximately 73 to 85% of all political murders in Colombia.<ref name="icc-paras">{{cite news|title=International Criminal Court Scrutinises Paramilitary Crimes|author=Constanza Vieira|work=Inter Press Service|date=August 27, 2008|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43696|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610224121/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43696|archive-date=June 10, 2011}}</ref><ref name="HRW-1999">{{cite book|title=Human Rights Watch World Report 1999|publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]]|year=1999|page=[https://archive.org/details/humanrightswatch0000unse_i9c3/page/109 109]|url=https://archive.org/details/humanrightswatch0000unse_i9c3|url-access=registration|quote=human rights watch world report 1999 colombia.|access-date=August 22, 2010|isbn= 9781564321909}}</ref><ref name="tate-paras-168">Tate, 2001: p. 168</ref> Many of these killings occur in massacres in rural areas, with the paramilitaries claiming they are eliminating alleged supporters of the guerrilla movements.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|publisher=ABColombia|title=Truth Commission of Colombia: Executive Summary|date=July 15, 2022|access-date=May 2, 2024|archive-date=May 2, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502222124/https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Restrepo, Jorge, and Michael Spagat. "Civilian casualties in the Colombian conflict: a new approach to human security." (2004), pg. 4.</ref> Paramilitaries also engage in the use of [[child soldiers]] and sexual violence against civilians, along with kidnappings for extortion purposes.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|publisher=ABColombia|title=Truth Commission of Colombia: Executive Summary|date=July 15, 2022|access-date=May 2, 2024|archive-date=May 2, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502222124/https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/truth-commission-of-colombia-executive-summary/|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{Quote box | quote = "[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." | source = Robin Kirk,<ref name="more-terrible-144" /> [[Human Rights Watch]] investigator in Colombia | width = 25% }}
Paramilitary violence is overwhelmingly targeted towards peasants, unionists, teachers, human rights workers, journalists and liberal or left-wing political activists.<ref name="rev-social-132-135">Brittain, 2010: pp. 132–135</ref><ref name="aviles-lowint-380">{{cite journal|title=Paramilitarism and Colombia's Low-Intensity Democracy|author=William Avilés|journal=Journal of Latin American Studies|volume= 38|issue=2|date=May 2006|page=380}}</ref> Paramilitary abuses in Colombia are often classified as [[wikt:atrocity|atrocities]] due to the brutality of their methods, including the [[torture]], [[rape]], [[incineration]], [[decapitation]] and [[mutilation]] with [[chainsaw]]s or [[machetes]] of dozens of their victims at a time, affecting civilians, women and children.<ref name="chernick-para-nacla" /><ref name="more-terrible-144">Kirk, 2003: p. 144</ref><ref name="rev-social-132-135" />
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.<ref> {{cite web|url=http://ictj.org/news/through-new-lens-child-sensitive-approach-transitional-justice|title=Through a New Lens: A Child Sensitive Approach to Transitional Justice|access-date=16 December 2014|date=September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216205612/http://www.ictj.org/news/through-new-lens-child-sensitive-approach-transitional-justice|archive-date=2014-12-16|url-status=live}} </ref> Many of these abuses have occurred with the knowledge and support of the Colombian security forces. A 1998 Human Rights Watch report stated:{{blockquote|... 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.<ref name="hrw-without-quarter"> [[Human Rights Watch]], [http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a7e30.html War Without Quarter: Colombia and International Humanitarian Law] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015045220/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a7e30.html |date=2012-10-15 }}, (en español [https://www.hrw.org/spanish/informes/1998/guerra4A.html aquí] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101024122750/http://www.hrw.org/spanish/informes/1998/guerra4A.html |date=2010-10-24 }}), 1 October 1998, 187-7, (accessed 23 August 2010) </ref>}}
A 1999-human rights report from the [[U.S. State Department]] said: {{blockquote|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.<ref>Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "[https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/colombia.html 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418120623/https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/colombia.html |date=April 18, 2021 }} ". [[U.S. State Department]], February 25, 2000</ref>}} In 2006, Amnesty International reported that: {{blockquote|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.<ref name="amnesty-fear-2006"> [http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAMR230332006&lang=e Colombia: Fear and Intimidation: The dangers of human rights work ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110218060417/http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAMR230332006&lang=e |date=2011-02-18 }} , ''Amnesty International'', September 2006 </ref>}}
===Massacres=== Hundreds of massacres have been perpetrated by paramilitary groups in Colombia.
{{Quote box | quote = "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." | source = Judge Leonardo Iván Cortés, Mapiripán, Meta, July 1997<ref name="hrw-without-quarter" /> | width = 25% }}
====Mapiripan Massacre==== {{main|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.<ref name="chernick-para-nacla">{{cite journal|title=The paramilitarization of the war in Colombia|author=Marc Chernick|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=March–April 1998|volume=31|issue=5|page=28|doi=10.1080/10714839.1998.11722772}}</ref><ref name="integrity"> [http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=646 Mapiripan: A Shortcut to Hell] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060602053257/http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=646 |date=2006-06-02 }} , [[Center for Public Integrity]] </ref><ref name="president"> Colombian President Pastrana Visits Washington This Week, [http://hrw.org/english/docs/1998/10/27/colomb1343.htm Human Rights Watch] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060331024632/http://hrw.org/english/docs/1998/10/27/colomb1343.htm |date=2006-03-31 }} </ref>
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.<ref name=integrity/> 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.<ref> Jo-Marie Burt, [http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/colombia6.htm The Massacre at Mapiripán] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170906134049/http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/colombia6.htm |date=2017-09-06 }}, ''Colombia Journal'', April 3, 2000 </ref> The evidence showed that the paramilitaries landed unhampered at the San Jose del Guaviare airport, which was heavily guarded by military personnel.<ref name=president/>
====Alto Naya massacre==== Another massacre took place at [[Alto Naya]], [[Cauca Department|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.<ref name="cj-alto-outrage"> Liam Craig-Best; Rowan Shingler, [http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia64.htm The Alto Naya Massacre: Another Paramilitary Outrage] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050213210600/http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia64.htm |date=2005-02-13 }}, ''Colombia Journal'', May 21, 2001 </ref><ref name="blood-capital-191"> Hristov, 2009: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA191 p. 191] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222065401/https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA191 |date=2016-12-22 }} </ref>
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.<ref name="cj-alto-outrage" /><ref name="hrw-sixth-2.3"> HRW, Sept. 2001: [https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/2.3.htm "2.3. Villa and Cauca (Third Brigade)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170409200416/https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/2.3.htm |date=2017-04-09 }} </ref><ref name="cj-alto-dahl">Patricia Dahl, [http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/the-massacre-at-alto-naya.htm The Massacre at Alto Naya]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''Colombia Journal'', February 23, 2004</ref> 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.<ref>Scott Wilson, "Colombian Massacre Large, Brutal: Chain Saws Used By Paramilitaries In Village Killing", ''[[Washington Post]]'', April 21, 2001</ref> 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.<ref name="cj-alto-outrage" /><ref name="cj-alto-dahl" />
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.<ref name="cj-alto-outrage" /><ref name="blood-capital-191" /> 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.<ref name="cj-alto-outrage" /> 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."<ref name="hrw-sixth-2.3" />
====Betoyes Massacre==== Another massacre took place in [[Betoyes]], [[Arauca Department|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."<ref>Eric Fichtl, [http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/the-massacre-at-betoyes.htm The Massacre at Betoyes]{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} ''Colombia Journal'', August 4, 2003</ref>
===Forced displacement=== [[File:Diplaced-child-girl-in-Colombia.jpg|thumb|300px|Displaced [[Emberá people|Embera-Catios]] Indian girl in Cazuca near [[Bogotá]], 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.<ref> Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), "[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/44bf3b4d4.html Colombia: Government "Peace Process Cements Injustice for IDPs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921171411/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/44bf3b4d4.html |date=2011-09-21 }}", 30 June 2006, (accessed 23 August 2010), p. 4 </ref><ref> Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), "[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a6180.html Profile of Internal Displacement: Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015045415/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a6180.html |date=2012-10-15 }}", 26 May 2005, (accessed 23 August 2010) </ref>
Paramilitary groups have been held responsible for the largest portion of displacement.<ref name="unhcr.org"> Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), "[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a6180.html Profile of Internal Displacement: Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015045415/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a6180.html |date=2012-10-15 }}", 26 May 2005, (accessed 23 August 2010), p. 36, 39 </ref><ref name="blood-capital-76">Hristov, 2009: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA76 p. 76]</ref> In the years 2000 and 2001, paramilitaries were blamed for 48 percent and 53 percent of forced displacement, respectively.<ref name="unhcr.org"/> 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 corporation]]s, and criminal syndicates, as well as to attack the civilian support base for the guerrillas.<ref name="blood-capital-76" /><ref> Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), "[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/44bf3b4d4.html Colombia: Government "Peace Process Cements Injustice for IDPs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921171411/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/44bf3b4d4.html |date=2011-09-21 }}", 30 June 2006, (accessed 23 August 2010), p. 32 </ref>
===Social cleansing=== 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".<ref>{{cite book|title=Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of limpieza in Colombia|author=Michael Taussig|year=2004|publisher=New Press}}</ref><ref name="getting-away">{{cite journal|title=Getting Away with Murder: Social Cleansing in Colombia and the Role of the United States|author=Elizabeth F. Schwartz|journal=The University of Miami Inter-American Law Review|volume= 27|issue= 2|date=Winter 1995–1996|pages=381–420}}</ref><ref> Lovisa Stannow (1996) [http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/8188/1/b17766254.pdf "Social cleansing" in Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110818162237/http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/8188/1/b17766254.pdf |date=2011-08-18 }}, MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University </ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Dispossessed: Chronicles of the desterrados of Colombia|author=Alfredo Molano|publisher=Haymarket|year=2005|page=113}}</ref><ref>''Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada'', "Colombia: Activities of a Colombian social cleansing group known as 'Jóvenes del Bien' and any state efforts to deal with it", 2 April 2004</ref> In 1993 alone, at least 2,190 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.<ref>Schwartz, op cit., pp. 387-388</ref>
==Financing==
===Drug trade=== The downfall of the [[Medellín Cartel|Medellín]] and [[Cali Cartel]]s 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.<ref> {{cite book|title=Shooting up: counterinsurgency and the war on drugs|author=Vanda Felbab-Brown|publisher=Brookings Institution Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8157-0328-0|pages=95–96|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5N95OLwIcUYC&pg=PA95|access-date=2016-10-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701085145/http://books.google.com/books?id=5N95OLwIcUYC&pg=PA95|archive-date=2014-07-01|url-status=live|author-link=Vanda Felbab-Brown}} </ref>
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).<ref name="p. 81"> Scott, 2003: [https://books.google.com/books?id=2wXCvk3UDDsC&pg=PA81 p. 81] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701085745/http://books.google.com/books?id=2wXCvk3UDDsC&pg=PA81 |date=2014-07-01 }} </ref>
===Financing by U.S. corporations===
====Chiquita Brands International==== 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.<ref name="nsa-chiquita-terror" /><ref name="para-goes-bananas"> {{Cite news|title='Para-politics' Goes Bananas|author=Michael Evans|work=[[The Nation]]|date=April 16, 2007|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas|access-date=2010-08-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717155354/http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas|archive-date=2010-07-17|url-status=live}} </ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Slap on the Wrist for Corporate Sponsors of Terrorism|author=Garry Leech|date=March 19, 2007|work=Colombia Journal|url=http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/slap-on-the-wrist-for-corporate-sponsors-of-terrorism.htm}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref> Chiquita's Board Members: Total Identification [http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1364 Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawers' Collective] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080812011100/http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1364 |date=2008-08-12 }} </ref><ref name="p. 78">Hristov, 2009: [https://books.google.com/books?id=cb49FuJaaCwC&pg=PA78 p. 78]</ref> The plea deal was negotiated by [[Eric Holder]], who was then an attorney with the law firm [[Covington & Burling]], which represented Chiquita Brands.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/international-news/portfolio/2007/09/17/Chiquita-Death-Squads |title=The Banana War |access-date=October 7, 2011 |date=October 2007 |author=Gray, Kevin |work=International News |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011003003/http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/international-news/portfolio/2007/09/17/Chiquita-Death-Squads |archive-date=October 11, 2008 }}</ref>
====Drummond Coal==== 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.<ref>Leech, 2009: [https://archive.org/details/beyondbogotadiar00leec/page/194 p. 194]</ref>
Since it started operating in the early 1990s, Drummond's 215-mile railway has been repeatedly attacked by the FARC-EP.<ref> {{cite book|last=Chomsky|first=Aviva|title=Linked labor histories: New England, Colombia, and the making of a global working class|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8223-4190-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/linkedlaborhisto01chom/page/278 278]|url=https://archive.org/details/linkedlaborhisto01chom|access-date=2016-10-13}} </ref> There is evidence that right-wing paramilitaries were hired by Drummond to guard the rail lines.<ref name="p. 78"/> 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.<ref> {{cite book|author=Chomsky, Aviva|title=Linked labor histories: New England, Colombia, and the making of a global working class|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8223-4190-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/linkedlaborhisto01chom/page/278 278]–279|url=https://archive.org/details/linkedlaborhisto01chom|access-date=2016-10-13}} </ref>
====The Coca-Cola Company==== 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.<ref> {{Cite news|title=It's the Real Thing: Murder|author=Aram Roston|work=[[The Nation]]|date=September 2001|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/its-real-thing-murder?page=full|access-date=2010-08-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012045456/http://www.thenation.com/article/its-real-thing-murder?page=full|archive-date=2012-10-12|url-status=live}} </ref><ref name="ds-killercoke"> {{Cite news|title=Stop Killer Coke!: Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia.|author=Madeline Baran|work=[[Dollars & Sense]] |date=November–December 2003|url=http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/1103baran.html|access-date=2010-08-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100710031633/http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/1103baran.html|archive-date=2010-07-10|url-status=live}} </ref>
==Political activities== {{See also|Colombian parapolitics scandal}}
The Colombian parapolitics scandal or parapolítica in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] (a combination of the words [[Paramilitarism in Colombia|paramilitar]] and [[politics|política]]) refers to the 2006–present [[Colombia]]n [[Congress of Colombia|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.<ref>{{in lang|es}} [https://archive.today/20070303100713/http://eltiempo.com.co/politica/2007-02-28/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3455840.html 'Parapolítica' generó enfrentamiento entre congresistas y ministros], [[El Tiempo (Colombia)|El Tiempo]], February 28, 2007. Accessed March 3, 2007.</ref> 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.<ref name="Colombia Reports">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. {{cite news |url=http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/24082-37-colombian-congressmen-5-governors-convicted-for-ties-to-paramilitary-death-squads.html |title=37 Colombian congressmen, 5 governors convicted for ties to paramilitaries |date=May 16, 2012 |publisher=Colombia Reports |access-date=2012-05-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120519152926/http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/24082-37-colombian-congressmen-5-governors-convicted-for-ties-to-paramilitary-death-squads.html |archive-date=2012-05-19 |url-status=live }} </ref>
==See also== <!--♦♦♦ Please keep the list in alphabetical order ♦♦♦--> *[[Alianza Americana Anticomunista|Triple A (American Anti-communist Alliance)]] *[[Brazilian militias]] *[[Carlos Castaño Gil|Carlos Castaño]] *[[Colombia–United States relations]] *[[Colombian Armed Conflict]] *[[Colombian parapolitics scandal]] *[[Conservatism in Colombia]] *[[Plan Colombia]] *[[Militia organizations in the United States]] *[[Ultraconservatism]] *[[United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia]]
==References==
===Footnotes=== {{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}
===Bibliography=== {{refbegin}} * {{cite book|last=Avilés|first=William|title=Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil-Military Relations in Colombia|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2006a|isbn=978-0-7914-6699-5}} * {{cite book|last=Brittain|first=James J.|title=Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP|publisher=Pluto Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-7453-2876-8}} * {{cite book|last=Hristov|first=Jasmin|title=Blood and capital: the paramilitarization of Colombia|publisher=Ohio University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-89680-267-4}} * HRW (1996); ''[https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/ Colombia's Killer Networks: The Military-Paramilitary Partnership and the United States] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206161617/https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/ |date=December 6, 2021 }}'', Human Rights Watch (Also in Spanish [http://www.humanrightswatch.org/spanish/informes/1996/colombia2.html here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080326234007/http://www.humanrightswatch.org/spanish/informes/1996/colombia2.html |date=March 26, 2008 }}) * HRW (Sept. 2001); ''[https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/ The "Sixth Division": Military-paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305072006/https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/ |date=March 5, 2016 }}'', Human Rights Watch * {{cite book|last=Kirk|first=Robin|title=More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, drugs, and America's war in Colombia|isbn=978-1-58648-104-9|publisher=Public Affairs|year=2003|pages=[https://archive.org/details/moreterriblethan00robi/page/149 149–151]|url=https://archive.org/details/moreterriblethan00robi/page/149}} * {{cite book|last=Livingstone|first=Grace|year=2004| title=Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy, and War| publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-3443-5}} * {{cite journal | last1 = Nussio | first1 = Enzo | year = 2011 | title = Learning from Shortcomings – the Demobilization of Paramilitaries in Colombia | doi=10.1080/15423166.2011.487780731626 | journal = Journal of Peacebuilding and Development | volume = 6 | issue = 2| pages = 88–92 | s2cid = 110608128 }} * {{cite journal |last=Rempe |first=Dennis M. |title=Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics: U.S. Counter-insurgency Efforts in Colombia 1959-1965 |journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies |volume=6 |issue=3 |date=Winter 1995 |pages=304–327 |url=http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |doi=10.1080/09592319508423115 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330101500/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |archive-date=March 30, 2010 |url-access=subscription }} * {{cite book|last=Richani|first=Nazih|title=Systems of Violence: the political economy of war and peace in Colombia|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2002}} * {{cite book|last=Romero|first=Mauricio|title=Paramilitares y autodefensas. 1982-2003|publisher=IEPRI - Planeta|year=2003|language=es}} * {{cite book|last=Scott|first=Peter Dale|title=Drugs, oil, and war: the United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield|year=2003|isbn=978-0-7425-2522-1}} * {{cite book|last=Stokes|first=Doug|title=America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia|year=2005|publisher=Zed Books|isbn=978-1-84277-547-9}} * {{cite journal|last=Tate|first=Winifred|title=Paramilitaries in Colombia|journal=Brown Journal of World Affairs|publisher=Brown University|year=2001|volume=8|issue=Part 1|url=http://www.watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/archive/8.1/Essays/Tate.pdf|access-date=2016-05-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409043420/http://www.watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/archive/8.1/Essays/Tate.pdf|archive-date=2011-04-09|url-status=dead}} {{refend}}
==Further reading==
===Books=== *{{cite book|author=Steven Dudley|title=Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia|publisher=Routledge|date=January 2004|isbn=978-0-415-93303-2|url=https://archive.org/details/walkingghostsmur00dudl}} *{{Cite book |author1=Duzan |first=Maria Jimena |title=Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars |publisher=Harper Collins |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-06-017057-8 |translator-last=Eisner |translator-first=Peter |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/deathbeatcolombi00duz}} *{{Cite book|title=Los crímenes de estado y su gestión. Dos experiencias postraumáticas y una aproximación a la Justicia Penal Internacional|series=Investigación y debate|volume=33|author=Alejandro García|publisher=CYAN|year=2009|isbn=978-84-8319-430-0|language=es}} *{{Cite book|author1=Jennifer S. Holmes|author2=Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres|author3=Kevin M. Curtin|title=Guns, drugs, and development in Colombia|publisher=University of Texas Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-292-71871-5}} *{{Cite book|author=Jasmin Hristov|title=Blood and capital : the paramilitarization of Colombia|year=2009|publisher=Ohio University Press |isbn=9780896802674}} *{{Cite book|title=Chronicle of a failure foretold: the peace process of Colombian president Andrés Pastrana|author=Harvey F. Kline|publisher=University of Alabama Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-8173-5410-7}} *{{Cite book|last=Leech|first=Garry|title=Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention|publisher=Information Network of the Americas (INOTA)|year=2002|isbn=978-0-9720384-0-9}} *{{Cite book|title=Colombia and the United States: war, unrest, and destabilization|author1=Mario A. Murillo|author2=Jesús Rey Avirama|publisher=Seven Stories Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-58322-606-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/colombiaunitedst00muri/page/86 86]–104|url=https://archive.org/details/colombiaunitedst00muri|url-access=registration}} *{{Cite book|last=Pardo Rueda|first=Rafael|title=La Historia de las Guerras|publisher=Ediciones B-Vergara|year=2004|isbn=978-958-97405-5-2|language=es}} *{{Cite book|last=Pastrana|first=Andrés|title=La Palabra Bajo Fuego|publisher=Editorial Planeta|year=2005|language=es}} *{{cite book|editor=Alberto Ramírez Santos|title=Las Verdaderas Intenciones de los Paramilitares|publisher=Intermedio Editores|year=2002|language=es}} *{{Cite book|author=Mauricio Romero|chapter=Paramilitary Groups in Contemporary Colombia|editor1=Diane Davis |editor2=Anthony Pereira |title=Irregular Armies and Their Role in Politics and State Formation|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003}} *{{Cite book|title=Parapolítica: la ruta de la expansión paramilitar y los acuerdos políticos|author1=Mauricio Romero |author2=León Valencia |author3=Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris|editor=Mauricio Romero|publisher=Intermedio Editores|year=2007|isbn=978-958-709-709-2|language=es|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=96oRACvLOfoC}} *{{cite book|author=Bert Ruiz|title=The Colombian Civil War|publisher=McFarland & Company|date=October 1, 2001|isbn=978-0-7864-1084-2}} *{{cite book|editor1=Rebeca Toledo |editor2=Teresa Gutierrez |editor3=Sara Flounders |editor4=Andy McInerney |title=War in Colombia: Made in U.S.A.|year=2003|isbn=978-0965691697 <!--|ISBN=0-965-6916-9-1 -->}} *{{cite book|title=Rivers of blood: a comparative study of government massacres|author=Brenda K. Uekert|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=1995|isbn=978-0-275-95165-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/riversofbloodcom0000ueke}}
===Journal articles=== * {{Cite journal|title=Paramilitaries in Colombia|author=Winifred Tate|journal=Brown Journal of World Affairs|publisher=Brown University|year=2001|volume=8|issue=PART 1|pages=163–176|url=http://www.watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/archive/8.1/Essays/Tate.pdf|access-date=August 21, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409043420/http://www.watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/archive/8.1/Essays/Tate.pdf|archive-date=April 9, 2011|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}} * {{Cite journal|title=Why the End of the Cold War Doesn't Matter: The US War of Terror in Colombia |author=Doug Stokes|journal=Review of International Studies|date=October 2003|volume= 29|issue= 4|pages=569–585|jstor=20097877|doi=10.1017/s0260210503005692|s2cid=143862200|author-link=Doug Stokes|url=http://kar.kent.ac.uk/965/1/download.pdf}} * {{Cite journal|title=Deciding the fate of complementarity: a Colombian case study|author=Jennifer S. Easterday|journal=Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law|volume=26|issue=1|year=2009|url=http://www.ajicl.org/AJICL2009/Easterday.pdf|access-date=August 21, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724231200/http://www.ajicl.org/AJICL2009/Easterday.pdf|archive-date=2011-07-24|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite journal|last=Novelli|first=Mario|title=Education, conflict and social (in)justice: insights from Colombia|journal=Educational Review|volume=62|issue=3|year=2010|doi=10.1080/00131911.2010.503598|pages=271–285|s2cid=144571085}} * {{Cite journal|title=Better lead than bread? A critical analysis of the US's plan Colombia|author=Doug Stokes|journal=Civil Wars|volume= 4|issue= 2|date=Summer 2001|pages=59–78|doi=10.1080/13698240108402469|s2cid=143691910|author-link=Doug Stokes}} * {{Cite journal|title=Multinational Corporations, Rentier Capitalism, and the War System in Colombia|author=Nazih Richani|journal=Latin American Politics and Society|volume= 47|issue= 3|date=Autumn 2005|pages=113–144|jstor=4490420|doi=10.1353/lap.2005.0037|s2cid=154858035}} * {{Cite journal|title=Deadly Ventures? Multinational Corporations and Paramilitaries in Colombia|author=Olga Martin-Ortega|journal=Revista Electrónica de Estudios Internacionales|volume=16|year=2008|url=http://www.reei.org/reei%2016/doc/MARTINORTEGA_Olga.pdf}}{{Dead link|date=September 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} * {{Cite journal|title=Colombia: Paramilitaries Get Sweetheart Deal|author=Sam Goffman|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2005|volume=39|issue=2|pages=50–51}} * {{Cite journal|title=Coercion Incorporated: Paramilitary Colombia|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=July–August 2009|volume=42|issue=4|page=11|doi=10.1080/10714839.2009.11722226|s2cid=218602156}} * {{Cite journal|title=the Paramilitary Connection|author=Nazih Richani|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2000|volume=34|issue=2|page=38|doi=10.1080/10714839.2000.11722632|s2cid=185226968}} * {{Cite journal|title=Legalizing the Illegal: Paramilitarism in Colombia's 'Post-Paramilitary' Era|author=Jasmin Hristov|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=July–August 2009|volume=42|issue=4|pages=12–39|doi=10.1080/10714839.2009.11722227|s2cid=157464898}} * {{Cite journal|title=U.S./Colombia: Demobilizing the AUC?|author=Gary Leech|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2004|volume=38|issue=2|pages=42–44}} * {{Cite journal|title=The paramilitarization of the war in Colombia|author=Marc Chernick|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=March–April 1998|volume=31|issue=5|page=28|doi=10.1080/10714839.1998.11722772}} * {{Cite journal|title=Displaced in Colombia|author=Anastasia Moloney|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=September–October 2004|volume=38|issue=2|pages=9–12|doi=10.1080/10714839.2004.11722391|s2cid=185059911}} * {{Cite journal|title=Durable Disorder: Parapolitics in Barrancabermeja|author=Lesley Gill|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=July–August 2009|volume=42|issue=4|pages=20–39|doi=10.1080/10714839.2009.11725457|s2cid=157886731}} * {{Cite journal|title=The Failure of Colombia's "Democratic Security"|author1=Hanson, Heather|author2=Penna, Rogers Romero|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=May–June 2005|volume=38|issue=6|pages=22–41|doi=10.1080/10714839.2005.11722371|s2cid=157101522}} * {{Cite journal|title=Politics as Organized Crime in Colombia?|author=Forrest Hylton|journal=NACLA Report on the Americas|date=May–June 2006|volume=39|issue=6|pages=4–38|doi=10.1080/10714839.2006.11722327|s2cid=157998433}} * {{Cite journal|title=Caudillos and the Crisis of the Colombian State: fragmented sovereignty, the war system and the privatisation of counterinsurgency in Colombia|author=Nazih Richani|journal=Third World Quarterly|volume= 28|issue= 2|year=2007|pages=403–417|doi=10.1080/01436590601153937|s2cid=153576077}} * {{Cite journal|title=The Coca Connection: Conflict and Drugs in Colombia and Peru|author=Vanda Felbab-Brown | author-link = Vanda Felbab-Brown|journal=Journal of Conflict Studies|volume=25|issue=2|year=2005|url=http://etc.hil.unb.ca/ojs/index.php/JCS/article/view/489/824|access-date=August 26, 2010}}{{Dead link|date=September 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
===Government and NGO reports=== *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB266/index.htm "Body count mentalities": Colombia's "False Positives" Scandal, Declassified], ''National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 266'', [[National Security Archive]], January 7, 2009 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB166/index.htm 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 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB217/index.htm 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: [http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3499952 Más sospechas de nexos entre 'paras' y militares revelan reportes de la CIA y Embajada de E.U.][http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717155354/http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas |date=July 17, 2010 }}) *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB223/index.htm 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 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB243/index.htm 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 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB287/index.htm 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 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB327/index.htm 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 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB259/index.htm Trujillo Declassified: Documenting Colombia's 'tragedy without end'], ''National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 259'', [[National Security Archive]], October 5, 2008 *[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB69/part3.html 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; [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1468/MR1468.pdf "Arms Trafficking and Colombia"]. ''[[RAND Corporation]]'', 2003 *[https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/colombia/ The Ties That Bind: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links], ''Human Rights Watch'', February 2000 * [https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/ The "Sixth Division": Military-paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia], ''Human Rights Watch'', September 2001 *[https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/11/17/breaking-grip-0 Breaking the Grip?: Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia], ''Human Rights Watch'', November 17, 2008 *[https://www.hrw.org/node/88060 Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia], ''Human Rights Watch'', February 2010 *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110218060417/http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAMR230332006&lang=e Colombia: Fear and Intimidation: The dangers of human rights work ], ''Amnesty International'', September 2006 *[https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR23/019/2005 Colombia: The Paramilitaries in Medellín: Demobilization or Legalization?], ''Amnesty International'', August 31, 2005 *[[Amnesty International]], "[http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a9c610.html Colombia: Barrancabermeja: A city under siege]", 1 May 1999 *[https://web.archive.org/web/20090325223459/http://www.lawg.org/storage/lawg/documents/other%20half.pdf "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 *[https://web.archive.org/web/20090325230142/http://www.lawg.org/storage/lawg/documents/the%20wrong%20road.pdf "The Wrong Road"], ''Latin American Working Group'', July 2003 *[http://www.hchr.org.co/documentoseinformes/informes/altocomisionado/informes.php3?cod=8&cat=11 Colombia 2005 Report] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728133623/https://www.hchr.org.co/documentoseinformes/informes/altocomisionado/informes.php3?cod=8&cat=11 |date=July 28, 2020 }}, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Spanish and English)
===News / magazines=== * {{Cite news|title=Paramilitaries Don't Want to Take the Blame Alone|author=Constanza Vieira|work=Inter Press Service|date=July 11, 2010|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52115|access-date=2010-08-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100714174536/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52115|archive-date=2010-07-14|url-status=dead}} * {{cite news|title='Conmigo extraditaron la verdad': Salvatore Mancuso en entrevista exclusiva|date=May 2010|work=Cambio|url=http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/830/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR_CAMBIO-5289247.html|language=es|access-date=2010-08-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227104804/http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/830/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR_CAMBIO-5289247.html|archive-date=2012-02-27|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite news|title=Same Paramilitary Abuses; New Faces, New Names|author=Constanza Vieira|work=Inter Press Service|date=February 4, 2010|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50225|access-date=2010-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100621050400/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50225|archive-date=2010-06-21|url-status=dead}} * {{cite news|title=Organized crime and the state|work=Center for International Policy|date=November 18, 2009|url=http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1211|access-date=2010-08-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525141448/http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1211|archive-date=2011-05-25|url-status=dead}} * {{cite news|title=Mancuso dio una lucha que hemos debido dar todos los cordobeses|author=Gustavo Gómez|date=September 28, 2008|work=Semana|url=http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/mancuso-dio-lucha-hemos-debido-dar-todos-cordobeses/115938.aspx|language=es|access-date=August 31, 2010|archive-date=January 19, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119223755/http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/mancuso-dio-lucha-hemos-debido-dar-todos-cordobeses/115938.aspx|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite news|title=Paramilitarism Alive and Well|author=Constanza Vieira|work=Inter Press Service|date=April 1, 2008|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41817|access-date=2010-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610223913/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41817|archive-date=2011-06-10|url-status=dead}} * {{cite news|title=Money Laundering & Murder in Colombia: Official Documents Point to DEA Complicity|author=Bill Conroy|work=Narco News|date=May 18, 2008|url=http://narconews.com/Issue53/article3099.html}} * {{Cite news|title='Para-politics' Goes Bananas|author=Michael Evans|work=[[The Nation]]|date=April 16, 2007|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas|access-date=August 22, 2010|archive-date=July 17, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717155354/http://www.thenation.com/article/para-politics-goes-bananas|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite news|title=Oil-Palm Plantations on Afro-Colombian Lands|work=[[Dollars & Sense]] |date=July–August 2007|url=http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2007/1107letter.html}} (Original in Spanish: [http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2007/1107letteroriginal.html Oil-Palm Plantations on Afro-Colombian Lands: An Exchange | Dollars & Sense]) * {{Cite news|title=Dominion of Evil|author=Steven Ambrus|work=Amnesty Magazine|publisher=Amnesty International|date=Spring 2007|url=http://www.amnestyusa.org/magazine/spring_2007/dominion_evil/|access-date=2010-08-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110220191009/http://www.amnestyusa.org/magazine/spring_2007/dominion_evil/|archive-date=2011-02-20|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite news|title=BP pays out millions to Colombian farmers|author=Robert Verkaik|work=The Independent|date=July 22, 2006|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-pays-out-millions-to-colombian-farmers-408816.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216115444/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-pays-out-millions-to-colombian-farmers-408816.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 16, 2008}} * {{Cite news|title=New Jobs for Paramilitaries|author=Constanza Vieira|work=Inter Press Service|date=April 10, 2006|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32842|access-date=2010-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610223847/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32842|archive-date=2011-06-10|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite news|title=Colombia's Deep Divide (June 12, 2006 issue)|author=Christian Parenti|work=[[The Nation]]|date=May 25, 2006|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/colombias-deep-divide?page=full|access-date=August 24, 2010|archive-date=October 12, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012045305/http://www.thenation.com/article/colombias-deep-divide?page=full|url-status=dead}} * {{cite news|title=Leaked Memo: Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries|author=Bill Conroy|date=January 9, 2006|work=Narco News|url=http://www.narconews.com/Issue40/article1543.html}} * {{Cite news|last=Mitchell|first=Chip|title=Along for the Ride: Colombia's paramilitaries are getting a pass, with a wink from Washington|work=The Progressive|date=May 2005}} * {{cite news|title="We Don't Negotiate with Terrorists?": United States Officials Had Brunch with the Colombian Paramilitaries Last Month|author=Luis Gómez|work=Narco News|date=June 16, 2003|url=http://narconews.com/Issue30/article801.html}} * {{cite news|title=Doing the US's Dirty Work: The Colombian Paramilitaries and Israel|author=Jeremy Bigwood|work=Narco News|date=April 8, 2003|url=http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article729.html}} * {{Cite news|title=Stop Killer Coke!: Death squads have assassinated eight trade union leaders in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia.|author=Madeline Baran|work=[[Dollars & Sense]] |date=November–December 2003|url=http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/1103baran.html}} * {{Cite news|title=U.S. Escalates Colombia's Dirty War|author=Tristan Adie|work=International Socialist Review|date=May–June 2002|issue=23|url=http://www.isreview.org/issues/23/colombia.shtml|access-date=August 22, 2010|archive-date=July 15, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100715091838/http://www.isreview.org/issues/23/colombia.shtml|url-status=dead}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20051016234433/http://www.colombialibre.org/ AUC Official Website] – (mirror from Archive.org [https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.colombialibre.org Wayback Machine], in Spanish) *[https://web.archive.org/web/20060223233832/https://hrw.org/doc?t=americas&c=colomb Colombia], Human Rights Watch *[http://www.colombiajournal.org/wordpress/ Colombia Journal]{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717002331/http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/ |date=July 17, 2009 }} *[http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/ Alto Comisionado para la Paz] (Spanish) *[http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/ Colombia Program], Center for International Policy *[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Colombia/Colombia_page.html Colombia] – ''Third World Traveller'' *[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BP_in_Colombia BP in Colombia], ''Sourcewatch'' *[http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/ Colombia Solidarity Campaign] * [https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21677414-former-combatants-colombias-internal-armed-conflict-spent-two-years-painting-their-experiences 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=== *Impunity-The Film – Film about the AUC *Little Voices (Pequeñas Voces) – An animated movie about the vision of children in the war in Colombia.
{{Colombia conflict}} {{Colombia topics}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paramilitarism In Colombia}} [[Category:Colombian conflict]] [[Category:Drug cartels in Colombia]] [[Category:Anti-communist terrorism]] [[Category:Far-right politics in South America]] [[Category:Paramilitary organisations in the Colombian conflict|*]]