Law Seen As Soft on Militias in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Law Seen As Soft on Militias in Colombia
Critics Say Effort At Demobilization Is Deeply Flawed

By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page A21

BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 20 -- Not long ago, the prospect of standing before a group of powerful police officers would have been a nightmare for Alcibiades Fuentes, a longtime member of one of the illegal militias responsible for widespread violence and much of Colombia's drug trade.

But Friday, Fuentes strolled before a group of policemen and was greeted with smiles and handshakes. Last year, he put down his gun and enrolled in a government program to reenter society, becoming one of the first to make the transition from lawlessness to legitimacy, through a process that the government hopes will be repeated thousands of times.
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But the demobilization program, based on a new law, has aroused intense criticism from human rights groups, U.S. politicians and others. The critics say the incentives in the law will allow some of the country's most dangerous criminals to escape justice through lightened penalties and legal loopholes that could protect them from extradition. They say the government of President Alvaro Uribe, while well-intentioned, is being manipulated by international terrorists.

"The law doesn't really make an effort to dismantle these groups," said Cesar Gaviria, who was Colombia's president from 1990 to 1994 and now heads an opposition political party. "They will still have their full economic power, their political power, and they will be pardoned for everything they did."

The Uribe government hopes the law, passed last month, will prompt as many as 20,000 paramilitary members to lay down their guns and reenter legitimate society after years of battling Marxist rebels, often in concert with the Colombian army, killing thousands of peasants, assassinating politicians and financing their operations through the drug trade. The right-wing paramilitary groups were formed in the 1980s by large landowners and drug cartels to protect their interests from leftist guerrillas.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001132.html
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Álvaro Uribe's right-wing government receives the third highest level of U.S. taxpayers' hard-earned contributions of foreign aid, right behind Israel and Egypt.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. The right wing paramilitary groups work in concert with the army.

Ask anyone in the country side who is a civilian.

[mom cat]

2. Thanks for the article.