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This
year and last, the paramilitaries have intensified their infiltration
of the trade unions and the universities. Union executives, college
professors, and students, are being killed and terrorized into silence.
When asked by Bernard Henri-Lévy in Le Monde why he
killed union members, Castano replied: "Because [unions] stop
people working." Last year, 129 union members were killed by
paramilitary death squads, a further 44 have been murdered this
year, and three recent attempts on the lives of union leaders have
been foiled by their bodyguards. Hundreds more are under threat.
Those Otalora refers to as the paramilitaries' "real protectors,"
may not remain faceless, nameless forces, operating from the shadows,
much longer. As the crisis deepens, and the opportunities to move
from anonymity into the public sphere increase, gradually, forces
hitherto only referred to in Colombia as "the Dark Forces,"
(Las Fuerzas Oscuras") are emerging into focus.
In Memoriam:
one dirty war victim
One November evening in 1997, in a friend’s house in Bogotá,
Eduardo Umana Mendoza, one of the most courageous Colombian human
rights lawyers of his generation, predicted the present moment.
"It is over for this country," he said. "Corruption
has criminalized everyone—the politicians, the army, the courts,
the church, the police. The left does not exist in Colombia. The
guerrillas? They are criminal too, and absurd besides. The only
people left who count for something are the trade unionists, and
they are being systematically destroyed. If you want to know what
is going to happen in Colombia, look to the right. The extreme right
are the only people in Colombia who know what they want, and they
will get it. They are the only organized force in this country and
they are on track to seize control. Opposition? Colombians have
their right-wing media, especially their television."
I had been away for three years and didn’t want to believe
him. It was easier to tell myself that Eduardo was burnt out. But
that night was the last time I saw him. On a Saturday morning in
April 1998, he was murdered as he sat at his desk. His three killers,
who included a smartly-dressed young woman, had gained access to
his apartment by posing as journalists.
Last year, the Prosecutor General charged Carlos Castaño
for Eduardo Umana’s death. The investigation concluded that
the killers were from a criminal organization in Medellín
called "La Terraza," and had been contracted for
the mission by Castaño. The investigation also implicated
the army’s Twentieth Intelligence Battalion, based in Bogotá,
for coordination between Castaño and the death squad.
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