Paramilitaries, Guerillas, Delicuentes, and the Columbian Government

[Araznal]

I've been reading into this recently, and I'm absolutely dumbfounded. Let me sum up:

Guerillas- Communist group in Columbia that is being attacked by the Columbian government and the US (since they hate Communism). Used to be popular with the peasant class until they started getting violent with strict laws in their territories. Their source of money is primarily cocaine.

Government- The Columbian government is the US's b*tch. They shut down all the factories for coca and are helping the US destroy their country's most valuable export (not saying that I approve of cocaine, but it is the most valuable export). They have constantly changing laws that are always too lenient, especially for minors. Minors go to juvy for 6 months if they kill someone. Government officials are constantly bribed by the Guerillas and Paras, so people don't trust them at all.

Delicuentes- A delicuente is a thug (not to be confused with the English "delinquent" which is a far lighter term). Someone who robs, kills, and generally acts like a tough-*ss. There are thousands of these kids who do this and the laws only put them away for a small time. They are sick of making crappy wages like their parents and they deal drugs to get the enormous supply of guns they have. EVERYONE HATES THESE KIDS.

Paramilitaries- A recent invention in Columbia. The idea began with townspeople, sick of the delicuentes and the lax government, to take the law into their own hands. Made up of ex-army, ex-police, and regular people trying to make a better living, the paramilitaries go into a town with a list of names. They then proceed to execute everyone on the list and leave the town. During this, the police and the townspeople are doing nothing because they want the paras there to get rid of the delicuentes. In fact, it seems clear that the Columbian government is supporting the paras as a kind of secret police. The paras control the media, the judges, and top government officials. People are supporting the paras because they "fix" their town. They call this limpieza: "cleaning". The paras also kill guerillas, which leads me to believe that the US is actually supportive of the paras, despite calling them terrorists just recently. Oh, yeah, and they also use cocaine for financing their killing sprees.



So... opinions? I'll have more info when I can get to my books, which will be by tomorrow. Until then, what do you make of all this?

[Araznal]

COME ON PEOPLE

You have opinions on EVERYTHING. There must be something you want to comment on about this. For example, what does the invention of the paramilitaries say about the Columbian people? What went wrong with the guerillas? How can the Columbian government get back the trust of the people? I'm sure you can think of more.

[pigeonmeister]

The problem is that: the Cold War, Cocaine and Globalisation have left Democracy as nothing more than a facade in much of 21st century S. America. Power is concentrated in small cliques that control the media, the military and the economy. The peasants have lived in fear for 50 years and corruption is a way of life. Apparently half of the Trade Unionists murdered in 1997 were Colombian. Democratic credibility is not a pre-requisite for US support because of ‘changing realities on the ground’. Basically America has a long history of involvement with states that have links to drugs and paramilitaries. The problem is that what else can the US do? Bush supports states like Colombia for several reasons Drugs- always a good reason to get involved in South America. Resources- Colombia, and S America is general, has emerging mineral and energy wealth. Ideology- America has an irrational hatred of South American governments who threaten to nationalise important industries (Chavez a good example), they will support any form of non leftist government. History, the US has a long and undistinguished history of funding undemocratic states in South America and covertly training their paramilitaries.

Bush has thus given Colombia over $3billion in 5 years. The main problem of countries like Colombia is that there are people in the government that the US feels it can do business with. Yet they can’t stop the fact that these people have little control over much of the disparate arms and instruments of the state, as well as the general corruption that the drug trade produces. In specific relation to Colombia it is the military (often the source of power) that cannot be controlled. It is common knowledge that corrupt elements of the military are supporting these paramilitaries. Corrupt military generals thus have an instrument of extortion, trafficking, political assassination to exercise an agenda that has nothing to do with US or Colombian aims in the region. Their execution of young hoodlums is a tool of both impressing and scaring the peasants who have long been scared and exploited. The bottom line is that the Colombian government are not in a position to take these generals on, and the US is not in a position to refuse aid until they do.

This is a good study of paramilitaries in Colombia; it is a couple of years old though.

http://www.watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/...ssays/Tate.pdf