Colombia: "but..."

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe can point to significant accomplishments. During his term in office, Colombia has the FARC on the run, has rescued Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages, has made Medellin and Bogota safe again, has seen thousands of paramilitary squad members surrender their weapons and has strengthened its economy. Uribe has enjoyed stratospheric ratings. He may win a third term in office.

But...but the cocaine trafficking persists, the army has slaughtered its own citizens and paramilitary groups known as "Aguilas Negras," or Black Eagles, seem to be making a comeback, as Chris Kraul reports in this dispatch from rural Colombia. Why do the Aguilas Negras seem to be a rising presence? Are goverment forces complicit?

These troubling questions cast a shadow over Uribe's accomplishments.

Comments

[Chris Brown]

I doubt that things would be so relatively peaceful in Colombia with cocaine production rising substantially if government officials weren't complicit.

Things were quite peaceful in Mexico when the PRI was in control and had an understanding with the narco-traffickers.

Calderon has launched a serious effort to take down the narco-traffickers in Mexico, and what has been the response?

Narco-gang violence in Mexico has increased substantially, in both volume and viciousness.

Uribe has long standing relationships with both Colombian narco-traffickers and paramilitaries. The guy is a gangster.

[El Cid]

The paramilitaries are by far the largest narco-traffickers in the country.

Uribe, from his very beginnings on his father's ranch, made a strategic choice to build up the paramilitaries into a modern mafia with which to defeat the guerrillas.

When you build up a force of illegal, warlord, drug-dealing bribing slaughterers throughout your country, you can't just turn them off when you want to.

They're there for themselves, not Uribe. 1/3 of the Colombian Congress isn't in jail or under court investigation because they just got caught up with the narco-paramilitaries.

Constantly over the decades you see the horrendous results when the U.S. and its allies choose to pursue foreign policy by building up illegal armies of right wing authoritarian murderers, warlords, and drug dealers.

Besides the chaos created for the locals -- and the vast, overwhelming number of victims who died in Colombia's civil war were killed by the paramilitaries and army, not the lesser mafia of the guerrillas -- there is always blowback at home too.

It wasn't a good idea for the U.S. to help build back up the Corsican and Sicilian mafias in order to fight Communists there. Generations of mafia terrorism have polluted the Italian state and U.S. crime.

But foolish policy makers always think they can build up their own Frankenstein's monster to slaughter their enemies (and the innocent), and then they act surprised when the monster fails to respond to their commands.

[Andrew Miller]

Hello Mr. Bridges! Question - now that things are going worse (or projected that way) for Colombia, Venezuela, etc - are we likely to see Presidents such as Uribe in Colombia, and perhaps even Chavez in Venezuela, decide to step aside? Uribe has been somewhat inclined to run a third term (historic because Colombia only had one term presidencies before Uribe). In a recent interview on CNN en Espanol with Claudia Palacios, it seemed Uribe was very much considering a third run even if he did not admit it outright, or has convinced that he is indispensable, even if he has not outright said so. But I wonder if he really wants to be President during an economic recession - wouldn't he be encouraged to leave office now before things get relatively worse, or without the U.S. trade pact and without any other trade pact to speak of, Colombia in the short term is in some economic trouble?

[Blaine Sheldon]

Interesting enough, the full report behind this flurry comes from the Colombian organization, Nuevo Arco Iris, detailing not only the prevalence of "Aguilas Negras" but also "Heroes de Castano" under the thumb of Daniel Rendón (alias 'Don Mario'), a former commander of Carlos Castano and rival of recently extradited AUC leader 'Don Berna'.

As both UN and US GAO reports have divulged, coca production has increasingly risen from years' past, rendering the eradication and interdiction arm of Plan Colombia rather fruitless. In short, the drug pie continues to be diced yet another way.

Yet, much of this sharp rise in violence and stranglehold seen by 'emerging' paramilitary groups comes to light due to raging turf wars amid operational void-- seen upon extradition of major 'demobilized' paras earlier this year-- including Salvatore Mancuso.

The question at bay, are these really emerging groups so much as organizational melding of right-wing criminal bands?

[Steve]

The paramilitaries have done much more good than bad in Colombia, whereas their enemies the FARC and the ELN are terrorists that started the war and have turned Colombia into a quagmire of violence. Under Uribe the situation has gotten much better because he has dealt with them in the only way possible: through power. But the FARC-lovers on this board only complain about the misdeeds of the paras and ignore the terrorism of the guerrillas. The Colombian people know better than you what is best for their country. They love Uribe and they hate the FARC. And the US drug war is the root of the violence and needs to be stopped.