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One of the first documented self-defense groups in Colombia was formed in the early 1980s under the name Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) or "Death to Kidnappers." When the M-19 Marxist guerilla group kidnapped his friend's sister in 1981, drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and his fellow drug lords created MAS to counter the powerful rebels known for kidnapping and extorting wealthy landowners. While private armies had been used for decades by landowners to secure their families and their territory from leftist rebels, MAS was one of the first and most feared large-scale paramilitary groups in Colombia.
As the drug trade in Colombia exploded throughout the 1980s, the paramilitaries gained strength and respect from the Colombian military. The Armed Forces partly organized, trained and even armed the paramilitaries. They were seen as a force that could counter the fast-growing and abusive left-wing guerrillas in a way that the military could not. In 1989, after a significant amount of staged kidnappings, disappearances and assassinations, the paramilitaries were deemed illegal. However, no real effort to subdue the paramilitary groups was made. Indeed in 1997, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, dubbed AUC for its Spanish initials, emerged in Northern Colombia.
This group, headed by brothers Carlos and Fidel Castaño, was formed as an umbrella organization to unite several exiting paramilitary groups in Colombia, thus gaining the necessary manpower to counter the expanding guerilla groups. Fidel Castaño is assumed dead, and after resigning on June 6, 2001, AUC leader Carlos Castaño was replaced by a nine-member leadership consortium. Carlos Castaño announced that he would dedicate himself to the political branch of the organization, and has repeatedly asked the Colombian government, unsuccessfully, for political status. While the guerillas have been given political recognition and have been many times to the negotiating table with the Colombian government, government officials do not acknowledge the AUC as a political entity.
The size of the AUC has reportedly tripled in the last three years, mainly due to its deepening involvement in the drug trade, and is said to have anywhere between 8,000 and 15,000 members. Targeting mainly perceived supporters of left-wing groups, specifically the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), as well as political activists, police officials and judges, the AUC is responsible for the largest amount of killings and massacres in Colombia.
In 2001, the AUC killed at least 1,015 civilians, a statistic that greatly surpasses the 197 civilians killed by the FARC. The AUC also committed over 100 massacres in 2001, a typical terror tactic used to displace large portions of the peasant population in order to better control major coca-growing territories. Indeed, the U.S. State Department noted that the AUC was responsible for about 43 percent of Colombia's internally displaced people in 2001.
Although the AUC is not known for targeting Americans, it has been explicitly linked to narco-trafficking, which deeply affects the United States. The AUC was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department on Sept. 10, 2001. This action was a significant move by the United States, as it officially denounced both sides of the Colombian strife for the first time. By listing the AUC on the its foreign terrorist list, Washington can refuse visas to anyone suspected of being tied to the group, as well as freeze financial assets pertaining to known AUC members.
While links of military and paramilitary relations have been widespread and tolerated by Colombian government officials in the past, the paramilitary groups are currently seen as a grave threat to the extremely volatile socio-political and military situation in Colombia both by Colombian and U.S. officials. Moreover, newly elected President Alvaro Uribe has introduced a plan to arm 20,000 Colombian civilians to aid the military in combating the paramilitaries. Critics fear this plan may only give paramilitary and guerilla forces more innocent targets.
The paramilitary situation in Colombia has recently become quite fractured, as the many groups that form part of the AUC currently disagree over the role that paramilitary forces should play in the drug trade. When Castaño renounced his leadership position in 2001, he claimed that the AUC was going in the wrong direction by becoming so dependent on drug profits. The 2,500-member Central Bolivar Bloc, which recently split from the AUC, was also in discord with the group, claiming that drug trafficking is an essential component of the paramilitary forces. Indeed, the Central Bolivar Bloc was the only group to reject an accord that reunified the paramilitaries in a meeting held on Sept. 5, 2002, by top commanders of the AUC. The agreement, signed by 15 AUC leaders, including Castaño, rejects AUC's involvement in the drug trade by disallowing the use of paramilitary protection for cocaine shipments. The AUC will, however, continue to tax cocaine producers in zones controlled by the paramilitary forces in order to fund its organization.
In addition to the links between paramilitary forces and the drug trade, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned with the grave human rights abuses committed by the AUC and their connection to Colombian security forces. Colombian and U.S. human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the U.S. State Department, have repeatedly reported collaboration between the military and paramilitary forces. According to a 2002 U.S. State Department report, "members of the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses, in some instances allowing such groups to pass through roadblocks, sharing information, or providing them with supplies or ammunition." This has raised some serious questions by U.S. lawmakers who fear that U.S. military aid and training could be falling into the wrong hands.
In an effort to diminish the ties between military and paramilitary officers, U.S. legislation granting military assistance to Colombia specifically stipulates that the Armed Forces of Colombia must sever all links to the AUC in order to receive U.S. aid. The United States certified the first portion of military aid to Colombia this year in May after noting human rights improvements in the Colombian Armed Forces. Although widely criticized by human rights activists, who claim the paramilitaries are still linked to Colombian security forces, the U.S. deputy secretary of state certified the human rights conditions required to release the second portion of the aid. Approximately $42 million was approved on Sept. 9, 2002.
Sources
"Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001," U.S. Department of State.
"Information About the Combatants, AUC," Colombia Project,Center for International Policy.
"Country Reports on Human Rights 2002," Colombia, U.S. State Department.
Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001.
Todd S. Purdum, "U.S., Citing Better Human Rights, Allows Aid to Colombia Military," The New York Times, Sept. 10, 2002.
Juan O. Tamayo, "Rightist Colombia militia placed on U.S. terror list," Miami Herald, Sept. 11, 2001.
Juan Pablo Toro, "Government to recruit 20,000 armed peasants in Colombia" The Associated Press, Aug. 22, 2002.
Scott Wilson, "Cocaine Trade Causes Rifts in Colombian War," The Washington Post, Sept. 16, 2002.
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