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PLAN
COLOMBIA AND PARAMILITARIES
Since mid-December, the skies over the Guamuez Valley have resonated
to the din of U.S.-donated helicopters and the hum of cropduster
planes dumping defoliant on illegal coca plantations. This air assault
was preceded by paramilitary ground operations that drove out guerrilla
units and massacred suspected civilian sympathizers, as well as
social and peasant leaders.
"Plan Colombia would be almost impossible without the help
of the (paramilitary) self-defense forces. If we did not take control
of zones ahead of the army then the guerrillas would shoot down
their aircraft," said a paramilitary commander, who uses the
alias "Commando Wilson." A former soldier, "Commando
Wilson" is now head of the AUC’s military operations in
Putumayo.
The paramilitary force openly admits that it receives taxes from
the coca trade in Putumayo, but stresses that it is only a means
to finance their prime objective--a counterinsurgency campaign against
the FARC.
Evidence abounds that the AUC has been backed by the army ever since
it arrived in the area in early 1998. A paramilitary commander known
as "Guillermo" said he first came to the region as one
of a 12-man paramilitary hit squad. When not carrying-out selective
assassinations of suspected leftists, they lived inside the army’s
24th Brigade base in Santana.The incoming 24th Brigade commander
Gen. Jesús Antonio Ladrón de Guevara concedes that
about 30 men defected from his 31st Counterguerrilla Battalion to
join the paramilitaries. "Commander Wilson" put the number
of defections closer to 100.
That army unit was drafted back to Bogotá in March for "retraining."
Ostensibly the move back to Bogotá, where it is now attached
to the capital’s 13th Brigade, is to train it in human rights
issues and refresh military training.
The 24th Brigade is currently banned from receiving any U.S. aid
under the Leahy Amendment, which prevents units involved in alleged
rights abuses from receiving U.S. assistance. But on paper at least,
the transfer of an entire unit from the 24th Brigade should improve
the unit’s rights record and clear the way for Washington to
review its position.
Meanwhile, the former 24th Brigade commander Col. Gabriel Díaz
is the subject of a formal inquiry by the Public Prosecutor’s
office into alleged army ties with paramilitary forces in Putumayo.
Pending the outcome of that inquiry, Díaz is studying in
the army’s top war college and awaiting promotion to general.
DRUGS AND GUERRILLAS
Every weekend, peasants line up at secret markets along the Caguán
River, in a corner of southern Caquetá province that is a
longstanding rebel fiefdom. The product they are selling is coca
paste, or semi-processed cocaine.
Once drug dealers purchase hundreds of kilos of the coarse powder,
it is shipped deeper into the jungle to sprawling clandestine laboratories
("kitchens") for refining. According to Colombian and
U.S. government and military officials, these wooden laboratories
and even the plantations where coca leaf is grown are routinely
protected by the guerrillas.
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