A reminder of what the real story is on the neo-paramilitaries of Colombia:
Colombia and the ‘new paras’of demobilisation
March 7, 2011 01:04
Despite the process of dismantling and disarmament of paramilitary groups which was carried out between 2003 and 2006 and which was sold as a triumph of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s second term in government, the groups in question, albeit under different guises, remain active throughout Colombia with the same objectives: control of the drug-trafficking industry, land and political power. The fallacy here is that renaming these groups only reinforces the lies that deny the failure of the attempts at demobilisation.
In January this year, two young biology students of the University of the Andes Bogotá, Margarita Gómez and Mateo Matamala, were murdered in San Bernardo del Viento, Córdoba, Colombia, at the hands of the armed group ‘Los Urabeños’, remnants of the paramilitary group ‘Casa Castaño’ which until 2004 was headed by Carlos Castaño, who in his own right was leader and founder of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
The two students were there because they were among those who have been led to believe that paramilitarism was consigned to Colombia’s history, and that- as Uribe claimed consistently- the country was peaceful, once and for all. However this is not the case, and the ‘unhappy coincidences’ as one member of the military described these killings (presumably los Urabeños had executed the two youths completely by accident), continue to happen.
The false idea of a Peaceful Colombia (where the only and last remaining evil to be destroyed is the FARC- Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia) has been reproduced by the media who are totally aware of the truth: not only have the crimes of the paramilitary in their many forms not ceased, they have multiplied and spread geographically across the Country.
In fact, wherever guerrillas have been eliminated, paramilitary groups have sprung up in some form or another right under the nose of complacent governmental and military authorities. What we can be certain of is that those media entities who took it upon themselves to be official spokespeople for these lies shoulder their fair share of moral responsibility for these murders.
More:
http://theprisma.co.uk/2011/03/07/colombia-and-the-%E2%80%98new-paras%E2%80%99-the-failure-of-demobilisation/