BAJIRA, Colombia, 22 September 2003 — Colombia’s largest private paramilitary force is seizing farmland and houses at gunpoint in an effort to consolidate its hold on strategic regions across the country before beginning negotiations to disarm, according to military officials, Western diplomats and witnesses.
The tactics pose a challenge to President Alvaro Uribe, who placed a central condition on the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, when he agreed to begin discussions that could end in a measure of amnesty for its leadership. That condition was cessation of hostilities against the civilian population, which has suffered the most hardship in Colombia’s four-decade-long conflict.
The paramilitary campaign comes during a peace process that began with a cease-fire agreement last December. The cease-fire was followed by eight-months of exploratory talks between the Uribe administration and AUC leaders, some of whom face drug trafficking charges in the United States. In July, Uribe formally committed his government to peace negotiations with the AUC after the group signed a pledge to disarm by the end of 2005. But negotiators have yet to agree on a timeline for disarmament.
The paramilitary actions, which include forced land sales and murders, are changing the military balance in regions where the government is considering demobilizing more than half of the group’s estimated 20,000 troops and creating post-war economic opportunities for them, a $130 million effort that the United States has been asked to finance.
Across a wide swath of northwestern Colombia rich with banana, cattle and palm farms, paramilitary groups have been forcing farmers to sell prime land at a fraction of the market rate. The effort appears designed to build a buffer against guerrilla incursions, provide work for paramilitary troops and shield their profits — much of them derived from Colombia’s drug trade. The peace process is expected to result in new laws that would force paramilitary leaders to pay compensation to the group’s many victims.
The tactics, which witnesses here say have displaced 1,500 families over the past few months, are being carried out by a mix of paramilitary groups, which have entered formal peace talks with the government, and other groups that are expected to join the talks soon. Church officials, civic leaders and small farmers, such as 65-year-old Enrique Petro, who lives in this village 260 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota, are resisting the effort to no avail.
Petro, a weathered man with a fringe of gray hair and a mustache, said he and his seven sons were driven off 330 acres of land he had owned most of his life. He said at least 30 other families from his village have also abandoned their farms, which are now being worked by paramilitary members.
“One of the men told me that if I didn’t sell he would cut my head off,” said Petro, describing the visit to his farm four months ago by men who painted “AUC” and other paramilitary graffiti in red paint on his wood house. “Now we’re all living under the same threat.”
These tactics are testing the process that Uribe says is essential to end Colombia’s multisided conflict. Uribe remains highly popular after a year in office during which kidnappings and other violent acts against civilians have diminished. His administration acknowledges that the paramilitary cease-fire has been imperfect. But officials say the violations should not disrupt a process that could remove a major player from Colombia’s crowded battlefield.
Paramilitary forces, now number 20,000, according to government estimates.