Information about the combatants

Information about the combatants

There are three sets of actors in Colombia's longstanding conflict: leftist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitary groups, and government security forces. While guerrillas and paramilitaries do not appear to have a significant support base, most are well-funded and control significant amounts of territory. All combatants commit serious abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law.

I. Guerrilla Groups

A. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)

Seven-member Secretariat:
Leader (above): Pedro Antonio Marín, alias Manuel Marulanda Vélez or "Tirofijo" (Sureshot), Alfonso Cano, Raúl Reyes, Timoleón Jiménez, Iván Márquez, Jorge Briceño (a.k.a. "Mono Jojoy"), Efraín Guzmán

(www.farcep.org)

What today is the hemisphere's largest guerrilla group began after a U.S.-supported attack on a Communist Party-inspired peasant cooperative in southern Tolima department calling itself the "independent republic of Marquetalia." According to the guerrilla group's version of events, the May 1964 raid pitted 16,000 military personnel against a community of 1,000, of which forty-eight were armed.

Survivors of the Marquetalia raid founded the FARC shortly afterward, led by Manuel Marulanda, a peasant guerrilla who had fought since 1948 in a period of partisan bloodletting known as La Violencia.

Still headed by the septuagenarian Marulanda, the FARC now has about 18,000 members in almost 70 fronts, organized in regional "blocs," plus mobile columns and urban militias. The group controls or operates freely in 40 to 60 percent of country, usually sparsely populated areas, rural zones, jungles and plains, and rarely in significant population centers. Its principal strongholds are east and south of the Andes.

While it received limited assistance from the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, today the FARC finances itself through kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and involvement in Colombia's drug trade. Together with the ELN (described below), the FARC is responsible for the majority of kidnappings committed in Colombia. Over fifty of those in FARC custody are officials (Colombian legislators, governors, ex-presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt, and three U.S. citizens working for a Defense Department contractor) the group has held for years, insisting on exchanging them for FARC prisoners in Colombian jails.

The FARC and ELN are responsible for about 20 percent of killings associated with Colombia's conflict, many of them civilian non-combatants. The FARC carries out occasional massacres, and has claimed many innocent lives through indiscriminate use of inaccurate gas-cylinder bombs. The FARC regularly recruits minors, at times by force.

Much of Colombia's coca is grown in FARC-controlled areas, and the guerrillas' link to the drug trade is the source of much controversy. While this link is chiefly "taxation" of coca-growers in the areas it controls, the group has some involvement in drug production and transit, though the paramilitaries likely control a far greater share of these latter phases of the narcotrafficking chain.

The Colombian Armed Forces estimate that the FARC gets about half its income from involvement in narcotics trafficking, an amount that is probably between $200 million and $400 million per year (estimates range from $100 million to $1 billion).

Aided in part by this income source, the FARC grew rapidly during the 1990s, and dealt the Colombian military several humiliating defeats in 1996-1998. It has since lost some momentum, losing key battles to the army and some territory to paramilitaries.

The FARC was involved in unsuccesful attempts to negotiate peace in 1984-87, 1991, 1992 and 1998-2002. During the first peace process -- which even brought a cease-fire -- the FARC set up a political party, the Patriotic Union, which the group had hoped to use as a vehicle for an eventual entry into non-violent political participation. Between the Patriotic Union's founding in 1985 and the early 1990s, at least 2,000 of the party's congress members, mayors, candidates and activists were killed by paramilitaries, security forces, and drug cartels. The slaughter of the Patriotic Union left the FARC's military structure intact, but left the group with few articulate political spokespeople.

Zone of FARC activity

FARC peace talks page

B. National Liberation Army (ELN)

Five-member "central command" (COCE):
Leader (above): Nicolás Rodríguez, also known as "Gabino," Antonio García, Pablo Beltrán, Ramiro Vargas, Oscar Santos

(www.eln-voces.com)

The ELN was founded in 1964 by a group of Colombian students who underwent training in Cuba. The group launched its first military operations in Colombia's north-central Magdalena Medio region the following year. Attempting to follow the Cuban model of rural rebellion, the ELN grew slowly but attracted many radical students and priests. Among the priests were Camilo Torres, a firebrand who died during his first combat in 1966, and two Spaniards, Domingo Laín and Manuel Pérez. Pérez served as the group's maximum leader from the 1970s until his death of natural causes in 1998.

Today, ELN membership is estimated at about 3,500 members, down from a late-1990s high of about 5,000. The group, which does not profit significantly from the drug trade, has lost ground to paramilitary groups.

The ELN relies more heavily on kidnapping and extortion to support itself. It frequently targets Colombia's oil sector, which it regards as dominated by foreign interests. Bombings of pipelines and energy infrastructure (such as power lines) are frequent. The group has also carried out several high-profile mass kidnappings since 1999.

The ELN was involved in brief peace talks with the government in 1991 and 1992, participating together with the FARC in a now-defunct structure called the "Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordination." The group held sporadic talks with the Colombian government between 1998 and 2002, and has maintained contacts with the Uribe government via the Mexican government since 2003.

For years, the ELN has declared its intention to negotiate its peace agenda through a several-month "convention" with Colombia's civil-society and popular groups.

Zone of ELN activity

ELN peace talks page

C. Smaller guerrilla groups

Colombia has at least three other, far smaller insurgent groups. The Popular Liberation Army (EPL) is a remnant that refused to go along when the original EPL, a Maoist-inspired group, negotiated a peace accord with the government in 1991. Perhaps a few dozen members remain; the group's leader, Francisco Caraballo, is in prison. The ERG (Guevarist Revolutionary Army) and ERP (Popular Revolutionary Army), tiny groups that are essentially satellites of the FARC and ELN, carry out occasional kidnappings and terrorist attacks.

II. Paramilitary Groups

United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC)

Paramilitary leaders Iván Roberto Duque (Central Bolívar Bloc), Salvatore Mancuso (Northern Bloc, AUC military chief), and Ramón Isaza (Middle Magdalena Bloc) address the Colombian congress, July 2004.

Colombia has a long history of privately financed self-defense groups, usually suffused with their wealthy patrons' right-wing beliefs. These groups' numbers began to grow rapidly in the 1980s.

The growth coincided with the advent of Colombia's drug trade. Newly wealthy drug traffickers laundered their profits by buying up as much as 2.5 million acres of land in northern Colombia during the 1980s. These new landholders put together private armies to deal with the guerrillas who kidnapped and extorted wealthy ranchers in the area. One of the first, and most feared, was a group calling itself "Death to Kidnappers" (Muerte a Secuestradores, or MAS), active in the Magdalena Medio region of north-central Colombia.

With funding from drug traffickers and other large landholders, and close and open collaboration with Colombia's armed forces, the paramilitaries gained strength throughout the 1980s. Their tactics -- selective assassinations and forced disappearances, massacres, forced displacement of entire populations -- quickly made them one of the country's main human rights abusers. They also played a strong role in the decimation of the Patriotic Union political party (see FARC section above).

The abuses of groups like MAS caused paramilitaries to be declared illegal in 1989. Little was done to disband them, though. Human rights groups have documented widespread post-1989 collaboration between Colombia's armed forces and paramilitary groups.

In the early 1990s the United Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU), a group headed by brothers Carlos and Fidel Castaño, emerged in northwestern Colombia. Using extreme brutality toward civilian populations, the group grew to be a powerful player in the northern regions of Colombia. Fidel Castaño was probably killed by guerrillas in 1995.

By 1997, Carlos Castaño had organized the ACCU and several other paramilitary groups throughout the country into a national structure, the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC). The group grew rapidly, from perhaps 4,000 members in 1998 to a reported 13,000 in 2002. By the time its last declared members demobilized in 2006, however, their number had reached about 32,000.

The AUC was always more of a loose, fluid confederation than a unified structure. The AUC even dissolved momentarily in 2002, when Carlos Castaño briefly resigned from the AUC's leadership because "everyone does as he wishes." Divisions within the group over links to the drug trade worsened during the early 2000s, exacerbated by the U.S. Justice Department's requests to extradite AUC leaders for narcotrafficking and the State Department's inclusion of the AUC on its list of international terrorist groups. At the same time, a new wave of individuals with long histories as narcotraffickers began entering the group's top leadership. Leaders like Diego Fernando Murillo ("Don Berna"), Víctor Manuel Mejía ("El Mellizo") and Francisco Javier Zuluaga ("Gordolindo") moved from Colombia's drug underworld to command of key paramilitary blocs.

After several years of divisions, including increasing incidents of combat between groups (particularly in Magdalena and Casanare), the AUC became more adequately represented by blocs than by one singular banner. 2004 saw the murder of several prominent paramilitary leaders at the hands of fellow paramilitaries: Carlos Castaño in April, "Rodrigo 00" of the now-defunct Metro Bloc in June, and Miguel Arroyave of the Centauros Bloc in September.

After Carlos Castaño, the most publicly recognized leader of the AUC was Salvatore Mancuso. A former Córdoba rancher, Mancuso became the "Maximum Comandante" of the AUC and chief negotiator in Santa Fe de Ralito. Mancuso was the first top AUC leader to testify under the Justice and Peace Law.

Key Blocs

The Northern Bloc -
Run by AUC military leader Salvatore Mancuso, the Northern Bloc incorporated Fidel and Carlos Castaño's original ACCU, controlling municipalities in a swath of territory stretching from the Panamanian to the Venezuelan borders. Mancuso's deputy in the Caribbean coast was Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, more commonly known as Jorge 40, whom authorities believe controlled much of Colombia's Caribbean drug routes. Vicente Castaño, Carlos and Fidel's brother, is a third powerful player - and he is widely believed to have played a role in Carlos' death. The Northern Bloc demobilized in March of 2006. Vicente Castaño is a fugitive from justice.

The "Élmer Cárdenas Bloc" -
Led by José Alfredo "El Alemán" Berrío, the Elmer Cardenas Bloc was originally part of the ACCU, which through a wave of brutality and massacres gained control of the strategic Urabá region near the Colombian-Panamanian border during the 1990s. Substantial evidence suggests that Berrío and the Élmer Cárdenas Bloc are very strong in drug trafficking. This bloc barely participated in peace talks and was one of the last to demobilize.

The Catatumbo Bloc –
This unit, an offshoot of the Northern Bloc, operated in the conflictive, drug-producing region of Catatumbo, in Norte de Santander department near the Venezuelan border. Commanded by Salvatore Mancuso – who also dominated paramilitary activity in Córdoba department and elsewhere in northwestern Colombia – it demobilized in late 2004.

The Magdalena Medio Bloc -
Led by Ramón "El Viejo" Isaza on the west side of the Magdalena river, one of the the most veteran paramilitaries, and Victor Triana "Botalón" Arias on the other side of the river. The Magdalena Medio Bloc demobilized on February 7, 2006.

The Central Bolivar Bloc -
Deeply involved in Colombia's drug trade, the BCB rivaled (and perhaps exceeded) the Northern Bloc in size and wealth. Led by Iván Roberto "Ernesto Baez" Duque and Carlos Mario Jimenez (“Macaco”) the BCB controlled much of the greater Magdalena Medio region and significant portions of southern Colombia's coca-growing regions. The BCB, along with the Northern Bloc, was one of the first to enter into negotiations with the Colombian Government and officially demobilized on January 31, 2006.

The "Mineros" Bloc -
Though it controlled a small area in northeast Antioquia, the Mineros Bloc was quite wealthy, largely from narcotrafficking. It was led by Ramiro "Cuco" Vanoy, wanted by the United States for his participation in the North Valle drug cartel. The “Mineros” Bloc demobilized in January of 2006.

The Calima Bloc -
Situated in and around Cali and down the Pacific coast to northern Cuaca, and led by Hernán Hernández, this bloc formed in 1999 after the ELN staged a kidnapping in a church in a wealthy Cali neighborhood. Heavily dependent on drug traffickers' support, the bloc demobilized in December 2004.

The "Avengers of Arauca" Bloc -
Commanded, at least on paper, by Pablo Mejia ("El Mellizo"), a Northern Valle Cartel figure wanted by the United States, this bloc operated in an oil producing region that has been a principal destination of U.S. military assistance. The Bloc demobilized on December 23, 2005.

The "Libertadores del Sur" Bloc -
Operated in the coca-growing zones of Nariño and Putumayo and led by Guillermo Pérez Alzate ("Pablo Sevillano"), a noted narcotrafficker wanted by U.S. authorities. The Bloc demobilized on July 30, 2005.

The "Centauros Bloc" -
Operating in oil-rich Casanare, Meta, Cundinamarca and Bogotá's slums, this bloc had been disintegrating following the murder of its leader, Miguel Arroyave, at the hands of his own men in September 2004. The Centauros fought a bloody campaign against the Llanos Bloc in Casanare. It demobilized on September 3, 2005.

The Llanos Bloc -
Headed by "Martín Llanos," based in Casanare, this bloc has been nearly decimated by repeated attacks from the rest of the AUC (especially the Centauros Bloc) and the Colombian military. Regardless, it never participated in peace talks and remnants are still operating.

These bloc-by-bloc demobilizations happened against the backdrop of peace talks with the government of Álvaro Uribe, which began in December 2002. In July 2003, the Uribe government and the AUC agreed to a process of demobilization which would end in August of 2006. Over the next three years, close to 32,000 paramilitaries turned over their arms.

During these negotiations, paramilitaries and NGOs waged a legislative battle to settle the terms of demobilization. Paramilitaries and the government conflicted over roadblocks such as impunity for crimes against humanity, U.S. extradition requests, and drug-trade infiltration. After several rounds of lenient legislation, Colombia’s Congress passed the Justice and Peace Law in June 2005. Many human rights activists saw this law as a concession to the paramilitaries, allowing light jail sentences and giving the government few tools with which to dismantle paramilitary power. In 2006, though, Colombia’s Constitutional Court revised the law. Now, ex-paramilitaries must confess their crimes, reveal information about their networks, and return illegal assets or face losing their privileged treatment for demobilizing.

Today, about fifty top paramilitary leaders are in a maximum-security prison; they and about 2,300 other are awaiting processing under the “Justice and Peace” law. (The other approximately 30,000 ex-paramilitaries were exonerated, due to a lack of evidence that they participated in large-scale “crimes against humanity.”)

Though the demobilization process is often heralded as a success, there remain significant concerns about its effectiveness. Paramilitary violence, though less prevalent, is still very present Colombia. The ninth OAS/MAPP report notes that in the rural areas most affected by violence in the past, citizens have not experienced substantial improvement in the security situation.[3]

Not all Colombian paramilitary blocs demobilized or even participated in the peace talks. In the Meta Department, for example, groups reorganized under mid-level commanders continue to battle over drug trafficking lanes with the influence of leaders like Vicente Castaño and Hernán Hernández (though Hernández was captured by the government in April 2007).[1][3]

This example highlights one of the most serious roadblocks facing the demobilization process. Many “demobilized” groups and leaders are likely to be continuing their activities. In May 2007, the newspaper Semana released recorded cell phone conversations in which jailed paramilitary leaders going through the Justice and Peace process continued to manage drug sales, extortion, tortures, murders, and cover-ups from their prison cells.[2]

Other concerns center on the extent to which paramilitary power is truly being dismantled. The unfolding “parapolitics” scandal, which has implicated several of President Uribe’s supporters in the Congress and local government, has raised questions about the groups’ penetration of the state.

Some demobilizing paramilitary leaders have revealed disturbing information about their traditionally close relations with the military and local political elites. However, most of the testimonies top ex-AUC leaders have given in mid-2007 have revealed next to nothing about past crimes or paramilitary networks.

Meanwhile, evidence suggests that new illegal armed groups are emerging to fill the AUC’s place in the drug trade. These new groups, which are virtually indistinguishable from drug gangs, lack the ideology and organization of the AUC, even conducting business with guerrilla armies.[3][1] As the government has attacked and captured members, it is discovering that only a minority are remobilized AUC. Most combatants are new recruits.[1]

Zone of AUC activity

Zone of Paramilitary presence over time

III. Government Security Forces




Clockwise from upper left: Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Carlos Ospina, Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Mauricio Soto Gómez, Police Chief Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Édgar Lésmes, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Reinaldo Castellanos.

Though Colombia has avoided most Latin American countries' histories of chronic military coups, its armed forces operate with considerable autonomy and often challenge civilian leaders. Over the years, Colombia's security forces, especially its Army, have suffered from a reputation for corruption, human rights abuse and poor performance on the battlefield.

The military has nonetheless maintained very close relations with the United States at least since the early cold war (Colombia even sent a battalion to Korea in 1950). This collaboration has intensified since 1999, when the bulk of US counter-drug aid shifted from the National Police to the Army.

Colombia's Defense Ministry, headed by a civilian since the 1991 Constitution was ratified, includes the Army (about 180,000 members), Police (about 150,000), Air Force (about 10,000) and Navy (about 5,000).


Defense ministry (www.mindefensa. gov.co)	General Command of the Armed Forces (www. fuerzasmilitares. mil.co)	Army (www.ejercito.mil.co)

Navy (www.armada.mil.co)	Air Force (www.fac.mil.co)	Police (www.policia.gov.co)

Colombian law exempts anyone with a high-school education from serving in combat units. With a large contingent of these "bachilleres" and many soldiers guarding oil installations and infrastructure, perhaps half of the Army -- maybe less -- is available to fight illegal armed groups. The Colombian government has announced its intention to reduce the number of "bachilleres" and add professional volunteer soldiers.

The armed forces have improved their battlefield performance since suffering embarrasing defeats at the hands of the FARC in 1996-98. In 2000 and 2001 the Army won decisive battles in Sumapaz, a zone 50 miles south of Bogotá, in Santander department ("Operation Berlín"), and in Vichada and Guanía departments ("Operation Black Cat"). Offensives carried out by the Uribe government have generally been successful. Maintaining control over re-conquered territories, however, remains a challenge, since investment in civilian governance is scarce.

Though their share of direct involvement in killings and disappearances has fallen in recent years to a current level of about 5-7 percent, the armed forces nonetheless continue to face serious allegations of indirect human rights abuse through collaboration with paramilitary groups. Except for a few high-profile cases, past abusers continue to enjoy near-complete impunity. [See the reports linked from the human rights section of this site's "Links" page.]

Location of military units

Colombian government home page

Sources:

¹International Crisis Group, "Colombia's New Armed Groups," Latin America Report Number 20, 10 May 2007. <http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4824&l=1>

²"Te llamo desde la prisión," Semana, 12 May 2007. <http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?idArt=103556>

⁸Organization of American States, "Ninth quarterly report of the Secretary General to the Permanent Council, on the Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (OAS/MAPP)," 3 July 2007.