<snip>
> Then there is the AUC. This was fashioned out of the vigilante bands
> set up by the drug barons to protect their supply areas and landing
> strips, and then by larger farmers to keep the guerrillas at bay.
> There is strong evidence that the national army supported the AUC as a
> clandestine means to fight the guerrillas. The AUC claims to recruit
> both ex-guerrillas and ex-army soldiers, including officers and NCOs,
> and to do so because it pays them well.
We're leaving something out here:
"Despite Colombia's disastrous human rights record, a U.S. Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency team worked with Colombian military officers on the 1991 intelligence reorganization that resulted in the creation of killer networks [paramilitaries] that identified and killed civilians suspected of supporting guerrillas." (Human Rights Watch, "Colombia's Killer Networks", 1996: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killertoc.htm )
I don't mean to sound like one of those CIA conspiracy guys. And in fact it's not CIA conspiracy -- it's U.S. policy.
-david