Colombia faces new foe in paramilitary group clashes

Conflicts occur as rebels mount offensive, troops enforce drug law

By Tod Robberson / The Dallas Morning News

BOGOTA, Colombia The Colombian government, already beset by an
increasingly powerful, 30yearold leftist insurgency, finds itself
confronting a new foe it had previously counted as an ally: rightwing
paramilitary groups.

Government troops and paramilitary militiamen turned their weapons against
each other after an estimated 100 gunmen from the rightwing United
SelfDefense Forces ambushed a militaryescorted convoy in southern Meta
province last week. They killed 11 government law enforcement personnel and
wounded 16 others. Four militiamen also were killed.

On Wednesday, another shootout occurred between soldiers and paramilitary
forces in the northern state of Antioquia. Three paramilitary fighters were
killed during the early morning battle against soldiers of the army's 11th
Brigade near the town of Taraza, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported.

The attacks occur as the country is lurching closer to allout civil war,
with rebels mounting a huge nationwide offensive ahead of Oct. 26 general
elections.

The guerrillas staged their own ambush last Saturday in Meta, killing 17
soldiers. Earlier last week, assailants believed to be rebels exploded a
bomb as a motorcade carrying the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Manuel
Jose Bonett, passed through the northern coastal town of Santa Marta. One
person was killed, but Gen. Bonett escaped unscathed.

While fighting between the rebels and government forces is almost a daily
occurrence in Colombia, confrontations with paramilitary groups have been
rare until now.

Some analysts are warning that such paramilitary attacks could become more
frequent if government forces continue to advance on areas where Colombian
drug cartels are known to operate. Both the rebels and the paramilitary
groups are known to provide protection for the cartels.

Last week's ambush occurred as prosecutors, police and soldiers were
attempting to enforce a new federal assetforfeiture law allowing them to
confiscate property linked to drug traffickers.

"This is an alarm bell about what could happen if the chief prosecutor's
office presses ahead with enforcement of the assetforfeiture law," chief
federal prosecutor Alfonso Gomez said in a radio interview.

This week, Gen. Bonett and other armed forces officers pressed President
Ernesto Samper to consider declaring a limited state of national emergency,
known as a "state of commotion," that would permit a suspension of some
constitutional guarantees and help government forces confront illegal armed
groups.

Gen. Bonett told reporters that the armed forces planned to launch a
"generalized offensive" and warned that the country is likely to face even
more violence, especially in towns and cities, over the next two weeks as
Colombians prepare for Oct. 26 general elections.

On Wednesday, three bombs believed to have been planted by rebels exploded
near political offices in Bogota. Another bomb exploded outside the Pacific
Coast port of Buenaventura Thursday, forcing closure of the main road
leading to the facility.

"In the face of the generalized offensive [that] security forces are
carrying out against subversive strongholds, we expect to see a rise in
terrorism, especially urban terrorism," Gen. Bonnet said Monday.

It is not clear whether the paramilitary attacks mark a significant change
in loyalties by the disparate rightwing groups, which are believed to
comprise up to 6,000 militiamen in 20 "fronts" across the country.

Their existence has been outlawed since 1991. Most of the groups operate in
areas where cocaine and heroin production or export facilities are located,
according to statistics compiled by the Bogotabased Center for Popular
Research and Education.

Max Alberto Morales, a spokesman for the United SelfDefense Forces, an
umbrella organization of paramilitary forces, said the group that carried
out the attack represented a dissident strain but acknowledged that
divisions exist within the umbrella group.

The militias have, until now, claimed to be fighting on behalf of
government forces in rural areas where the army is too thinly stretched to
maintain a fulltime presence. They assert that their principal source of
funding is from cattle ranchers and other rural businessmen who have been
repeatedly menaced by the rebels.

But many, if not most, paramilitary groups also have ties to the nation's
most powerful drug cartels and collect huge payments to provide protection
for clandestine airstrips and laboratories, U.S. and Colombian
antinarcotics officials say.

The most notorious of the paramilitary leaders, Carlos Castano, of the
2,000member Peasant SelfDefense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba, has a $1
million bounty on his head and has been in hiding for years.

In a statement Sunday, Mr. Castano disavowed the actions of the group
involved in last week's attack and called on the group's leaders "to place
themselves at the disposition of the federal prosecutors along with their
men."

Another paramilitary leader, Ramon Isaza, said that the "principal point"
in the formation of the United SelfDefense Forces was that none would
become involved with drug traffickers and that they would respect the
authority of the state.

But Col. Leonardo Gallego, commander of Colombia's antinarcotics police,
said that last week's attack was not the first time that paramilitary
fighters have clashed with government security forces.

Pitched battles between paramilitary fighters and government security
forces date as far back as 1988, when 13 judicial officials were killed in
a shootout with militiamen in northern Santander province.

The renewal of such attacks "is a double reason for concern," Col. Gallego
said.

"The antinarcotics police have encountered cocaine and heroin processing
laboratories in several zones where we know the selfdefense forces
dominate," Col. Gallego said. "Some have said they are fighting in favor of
the government, but I don't think they're fighting on the same side,
because they're operating at the margin of the law."

He and other national police officials said they were at a loss to explain
why Colombia's military had not pursued the paramilitary groups more
vigorously.

"We [police] work in one direction and one direction only, and that is
against all who operate at the margin of the law," Col. Gallego said.

The government is coming under increasing pressure, not only from the
police but from human rights groups and independent peace mediators, to
move against the paramilitaries with the same vigor that it is pursuing the
rebels.

Robin Kirk, who monitors Colombia for Human Rights Watch/Americas, said
army commanders are putting the Samper government in a difficult position
because they typically have tolerated paramilitary activities as serving
their mutual, antirebel cause.

"You face a situation in which the army is turning a blind eye to the
paramilitaries while the police are arresting and pursuing them," she said.

Jaime Zuluaga Nieto, a political scientist at the National University of
Colombia, said last week's paramilitary ambush could mark the end of
government tolerance of such groups, which he said have enjoyed virtual
"judicial impunity."