Washington D.C. October 16, 2005 - Today, the
Colombia Documentation Project proudly announces the first in a
series of articles to be published in collaboration with
Semana, Colombia's leading news magazine. The column,
which will appear monthly on
Semana.com, is the result of a mutual desire to
publish and disseminate in Colombia declassified information now
emerging from United States files about the major issues in the
U.S.-Colombia relationship, including the drug war, security
assistance programs, human rights and impunity.
The
first
column, published here in English and in
Spanish at Semana.com, reveals new information
about the hidden history of collaboration between Colombain
security forces and their paramilitary allies, offering a unique
and intimate perspective on the institutional pressures that
encouraged cooperation with paramilitary atrocities.
Each month, the National Security Archive will simultaneously
publish an English-language version of the article along with
scanned images of the
documents
cited in the column. Watch this space for upcoming articles or
sign
up to receive the National Security Archive's free email
update every time the website is updated with new material.
Paramilitaries as Proxies
Declassified evidence on the Colombian army's
anti-guerrilla "allies"
by Michael Evans,
director, Colombia documentation
project
The question of the Colombian military's complicity with
paramilitary atrocities will probably not be addressed by the
National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation, which
convened last week to sort through the legal and compensatory
issues involved in the deactivation of the country's right-wing
militias. The law governing the demobilization process provides
sweeping amnesty for most paramilitary members and requires little
more than good faith and modest reparations payments from those
guilty of more serious "crimes against humanity." The Justice and
Peace Unit of the Attorney General's office-which operates
alongside the commission-has only 60 days to prepare cases, and
even those found guilty of serious charges can expect to serve
relatively light sentences. The measure also does not compel
paramilitary commanders to provide information about the
operations and financing of their organizations-what President
Álvaro Uribe calls "a balance between justice and peace."
Fortunately, recently declassified U.S. documents, including
the first-hand accounts of senior Colombian army officers, are
beginning to lift the veil of secrecy. Obtained under the U.S.
Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, these
records provide important new details about military involvement
in paramilitary attacks and offer a unique and intimate
perspective on the institutional pressures that encouraged a wide
range of cooperation with paramilitary forces-from the tacit
acquiescence of senior commanders to the direct participation of
field officers and their troops.
One case sure to be examined by the commission concerns the
infamous series of paramilitary massacres in and around the towns
of La Gabarra and Tibú in the summer of 1999. Paramilitaries from
the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) moved into the
lucrative coca growing region in May 1999 to "cleanse" guerrilla
influence from the area, killing some 150 people in more than a
dozen attacks over that next three months. In most cases, local
military forces simply did not react to the paramilitary
incursions.
In the midst of this brutal offensive, the Colombian vice
president's office "privately reported" to the U.S. embassy that
Colombian army soldiers "had donned AUC armbands and participated
directly" in one of the massacres. "The string of mass killings
since May without security force response is appalling," U.S.
Ambassador Curtis Kamman
reported in a cable to Washington. "How did
seven massacres occur without interference under the noses of
several hundred security force members?"
The ambassador soon had an answer. In November, a U.S.
embassy officer interviewed Colombian army Col. Víctor Hugo
Matamoros, the commander of the 5th Mechanized Brigade in nearby
Cúcuta. Matamoros was subsequently investigated but later released
on charges that he had fomented the groups responsible for the La
Gabarra killings. Matamoros offered a "surprisingly frank"
explanation for why his troops did not intervene in paramilitary
attacks:
"Look, I have 100 kilometers of oil pipeline to protect, as
well as several bridges and the National Police… Plus, there are
guerrillas to fight… If you have so many tasks to do with so few
resources, and you're faced with two illegal armed groups, one
of which (guerrillas) is shooting at you and the other
(paramilitaries) is shooting at them, you obviously fight the
guerrillas first, then worry about
paramilitaries."
"The local army unit refuses to combat area paramilitaries,"
the embassy officer
wrote in his trip report. "He is convinced that
doing so before the guerrillas are defeated would not make
military sense."
The colonel's acquiescent approach to paramilitarism should
not have surprised anyone at the embassy. Other documents said
much the same. "All indications are that paramilitarism has
continued to grow…and the government has done little to confront
them," the State Department's Andean desk officer
reported in January 1999. "Security forces did
not intervene during 19 separate attacks in which 143 civilians
were killed over four days in January."
In February, a
U.S. military official said that security forces
had "not actively persecuted" the paramilitaries because they saw
them as "allies in the fight against guerrillas, their common
enemy." The
CIA's Senior Executive Intelligence Brief
for September 16, 1999 offered a similarly bleak assessment,
finding that local military commanders "do not challenge
paramilitary groups operating in their areas because they see the
insurgents as the common foe."
Under pressure to clean up its human rights record and
humbled by an increasingly effective guerrilla force, the
Colombian military had begun to shift more and more of its dirty
work to paramilitary groups. Thus, even as military violations
declined, a
State Department report titled "Colombia: A Violent
Backdrop" found that "the military's frustration with its
inability to defeat the guerrillas has contributed to a jump in
paramilitary violations." The result was "decreased military
aggressiveness in the field, and at least tacit support for
paramilitaries, which liquidate suspected guerrillas and
sympathizers without legal concerns."
The documents describe a firmly entrenched pattern of abuse
in the Colombian military, less a specific policy than an
institutional culture. A "cashiered" colonel from the Colombian
army's notorious 17th Brigade
confided to a U.S. military attaché that there
was a "body count syndrome" among army forces that tended "to fuel
human rights abuses by otherwise well-meaning soldiers trying to
get their quota to impress superiors." That mindset had produced
what the official characterized as "a cavalier, or at least
passive, approach" among military officers when it came to
"allowing paramilitaries to serve as proxies for the Colar
[Colombian army] in contributing to the guerrilla body
count."
Cooperation with paramilitary groups was implied, according
to the colonel. Abuses were tacitly condoned by the expectations
of senior military leaders who sheltered themselves behind a wall
of plausible deniability. Former Fourth Brigade commanders Harold
Bedoya and Jorge Enrique Mora "looked the other way," he said, and
"never allowed themselves to become directly involved in
encouraging or supporting paramilitary activities." The once
(Bedoya) and future (Mora) armed forces commanders simply "turned
their backs to what was happening and felt the Colar [Colombian
army] should in no way be blamed for any resulting human rights
atrocities committed."
The generals just might get their wish. The lenient terms of
surrender and the strict time limit imposed on investigations of
paramilitary crimes ensure that they will uncover little new
information on the critical role that Colombian military officers
have played in fomenting and the groups, thwarting what might
otherwise have been an opportunity to use the demobilization
process to gather valuable information on the underpinnings of
paramilitarism in Colombia. Unless an effort is made to explore
this history of collaboration, it is unlikely that Colombians will
know either justice or peace.
Documents
Note: The
following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to
download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1
1997 December 24
Cashiered
Colonel Talks Freely About the Army He Left Behind
Defense
Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Report, Secret, 4
pp.
Source: Defense Intelligence Agency declassification
release under FOIA, June 2003
There is a "body count syndrome" in the Colombian army's
counterinsurgency strategy that "tends to fuel human rights abuses
by otherwise well-meaning soldiers trying to get their quota to
impress superiors," according to a recently-retired Colombian army
colonel and reported in this Intelligence Information Report. This
approach is in part responsible for commanders "allowing the
paramilitaries to serve as proxies for the [Colombian army] in
contributing to the guerrilla body count."
The 17th Brigade in Urabá had been cooperating with
paramilitaries "for a number of years," according to the colonel,
but it "had gotten much worse" under the command of Gen. Rito
Alejo del Río Rojas, who was later indicted but ultimately
acquitted of collusion with paramilitaries by the Prosecutor
General's office in May 2003.
The officer was also critical of several high-level military
commanders, including Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora, who would later
serve as armed forces commander. Mora had a clean public
reputation, according to the officer, but was "probably was one of
those who looked the other way" with respect to collaboration with
paramilitaries. Former armed forces commander Gen. Harold Bedoya
"fell into the same category," in that both officers "never
allowed themselves to become directly involved in encouraging or
supporting paramilitary activities, but they turned their backs to
what was happening and felt the [Colombian army] should in no way
be blamed for any resulting human rights atrocities
committed."
The colonel is also concerned about "the potential direction"
of the Colombian army if another general, Iván Ramírez Quintero,
abuses his new position as army inspector general. The officer is
convinced that Ramírez "has gone far beyond the passive phase with
paramilitaries and is actively supporting them." Ramírez, the
so-called "godfather of Colombian army intelligence" who later
admitted to having a close working relationship with the CIA, had
his U.S. visa revoked in 1998 and was then named as Colombia's
military attaché to Chile.
Document 2
1998 January 06
Colombia: A
Violent Backdrop
State Department, Bureau of Intelligence
and Research, Intelligence Assessment, Confidential, 4
pp.
Source: State Department Appeals Panel declassification
release under FOIA, July 11, 2002Colombia's conflict is at a "strategic stalemate," according
to this State Department intelligence analysis. Persistently high
levels of violence and human rights violations are likely to
expand "in the face of military ineffectiveness." WHile the
military's record may have improved on paper, in practice many
Colombian military officers "turn a blind eye to paramilitary
activities in their areas of responsibility." Frustration with the
inability to effectively confront the guerrillas "has contributed
to a jump in paramilitary violations,…decreased military
aggressiveness in the field, and at least tacit support for
paramilitaries, which liquidate suspected guerrillas and
sympathizers without legal concerns."
Document 3
1999 January 25
Official
Informal for Ambassador Kamman from WHA/AND Director Chicola and
DRL DAS Gerson
State Department cable, Confidential, 3
pp.
Source: State Department Appeals Panel declassification
release under FOIA, May 5, 2004
In a brief summary for Ambassador Curtis Kamman, State
Department officials Phil Chicola (Office of Andean Affairs) and
Leslie Gerson (Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor)
provide their "view of the military/paramilitary situation in
Colombia." While much of the document has been excised, it is
clear that they are concerned about "the appointment to key
positions" of generals credibly accused of ties with
paramilitaries, including generals Fernando Millán, Rito Alejo del
Río, and Rafael Hernández López. "All indications," they conclude,
"are that paramilitarism has continued to grow during the Pastrana
administration." They add that the government has done little to
confront paramilitaries, citing reports that "state security
forces did not intervene during 19 separate attacks in which 143
civilians were killed over four days in January."
Document
4
1999
February 23
FARC Guerrilla Commanders and Paramilitary
Group Members Comment on Their Organizations and
Activities
Defense Intelligence Agency, Intelligence
Information Report, Secret, 4 pp.
Source: Defense Intelligence
Agency declassification release under FOIA, October
2002This brief and heavily-censored analysis of Colombian
guerrilla and paramilitary groups-U.S. military intelligence
sources finds that Colombian security forces "have not actively
persecuted paramilitary group members because they see them as
allies in the fight against the guerrillas, their common
enemy."
Document
5
1999 July
29
Paramilitaries Massacre as Many as 50 in Norte de
Santander
U.S. Embassy Bogotá, cable, classification
excised, 5 pp.
Source: State Department declassification
release under FOIA, May 15, 2002In the midst of a series of brutal paramilitary massacres in
and around the towns of La Gabarra and Tibú in the summer of 1999,
the Colombian vice president's office "privately reported" to the
U.S. embassy that Colombian army soldiers "had donned AUC armbands
and participated directly" in one of the massacres. AUC forces
moved into the lucrative coca growing region in May 1999 to
"cleanse" guerrilla influence in the area, killing some 150 people
in more than a dozen attacks over that next three months. In most
cases, local military forces simply did not react to the
paramilitary incursions. "The string of mass killings since May
without security force response is appalling," U.S. Ambassador
Curtis Kamman reports in this cable to Washington. "How did seven
massacres occur without interference under the noses of several
hundred security force members?"
Document 6
1999 September 16
[Armed
Groups Filling Power Vacuum in Rural Areas]
CIA, Senior
Executive Intelligence Brief, Top Secret, 3 pp.
Source: CIA
declassification release under FOIA, August
2004
The CIA's daily Senior Executive Intelligence Brief
finds that local Colombian military commanders "do not challenge
paramilitary groups operating in their areas because they see the
insurgents as the common foe."
Document 7
1999 November 15
Visit to
Cucuta, on Colombian-Venezuelan Border
U.S. Embassy
Bogotá, cable, Confidential, 10 pp.
Source: State Department
declassification release under FOIA, January 3,
2005
During a visit to the volatile department of Norte de
Santander, Colonel Víctor Hugo Matamoros, a local army commander,
tells a U.S. Embassy officer that his troops are not pursuing
paramilitary groups:
"Look, I have 100 kilometers of oil pipeline to protect, as
well as several bridges and the National Police… Plus, there are
guerrillas to fight… If you have so many tasks to do with so few
resources, and you're faced with two illegal armed groups, one of
which (guerrillas) is shooting at you and the other
(paramilitaries) is shooting at them, you obviously fight the
guerrillas first, then worry about the paramilitaries."
The visit followed a series of some 15 paramilitary massacres
in and around the Norte de Santander towns of La Gabarra and Tibú
during May-September 1999 that left as many as 145 dead. At the
time, Matamoros was under investigation by the Prosecutor
General's Human Rights Unit for organizing paramilitary groups
from 1997-1999 and specifically in connection to the La Gabarra
massacres. He was later absolved of these charges.
"Matamoros was surprisingly frank with [the U.S. Embassy
official] about his intention not to fight paramilitaries,"
according to the document. "He is convinced that doing so before
the guerrillas are defeated would not make military
sense."