CIVILIANS CAUGHT IN MIDDLE OF COLOMBIA'S DIRTY WAR

The paramilitaries stormed the village of Buenos Aires one Sunday
evening just as the locals were leaving church. Brandishing assault
rifles and machetes, around 200 of them herded the villagers into the
square, where they announced that they were hunting for leftwing rebels.

When they left, two local men lay dying in the street. What nobody can
understand is how the paramilitaries made their getaway. They marched
out of the village, 65km north of the city of Cali, at sunrise, down
the road towards an army unit sent to intercept them - but commanders
say their troops never saw them. "How do you explain that? Two hundred
armed men don't just disappear," said a Colombian human rights
official, who asked not to be named. He believes the army saw them and
let them go.

As the United States edges towards approving $1.6bn in mostly military
aid to Colombia, the United Nations released a report alleging that
members of the Colombian army tolerate - or collaborate with - illegal
paramilitary groups in the country's dirty war. It follows equally
damning studies by the US state department and the monitoring group,
Human Rights Watch, blaming the government of President Andres
Pastrana for the growing strength of the paramilitary groups, which
are now believed to field around 7,000 fighters.

Colombia's rightwing militias are a hybrid force, combining the
private armies of powerful landlords and drug dealers with the now
outlawed rural intelligence networks set up by the government to
combat leftwing guerrillas. Loosely allied as the United Self-Defence
Groups of Colombia (ACCU), the paramilitaries rarely attack rebel
groups - such as the leftwing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Farc) - preferring to go for civilians they accuse of sympathising
with the guerrillas.

The region worst hit by the paramilitary onslaught is in the Andes,
north of Cali - until last year a Farc stronghold. The "Calima Front"
of the ACCU announced its arrival in the area with the murder of a
farmer and his daughter in July. It issued leaflets giving locals
three options: leave the region, fight against the rebels, or die.
Since August the group has killed 94 people, mostly community leaders
and union activists. At least 2,000 people have fled their homes.

Marlene Correa lived through the raid on Buenos Aires last September.
Her son Luis, 23, did not; he was shot and killed by paramilitaries.
"They made the women kneel down, and the boss ran his knife under our
throats. He told us it was for gouging out guerrilla eyes. It was like
a nightmare, but one of those nightmares you never wake up from." she
said. "But what happened to the troops? They never arrived."

The troops reached the village just hours after the paramilitaries had
left. Local police and army officials deny reports from villagers that
military helicopters flew overhead constantly in the days before the
raid, dropping off uniformed men in the mountains nearby - but they
concede that they are the only group with aircraft.

Ms Correa fled with more than 700 other villagers to the nearby town
of Buga. A local lawyer who took up their case was shot dead in
January. Their suspicions were further aroused when a known
paramilitary spy was sighted on the local army base. No suspects have
been arrested in connection with any of the murders: state
investigators say that the region is too dangerous for them to work
in, and the military says it cannot catch the militias while they hide
out in the mountains.

But locals say that the Calima Front has set up a permanent base in
the abandoned village of Buenos Aires. "[They] are living in our
homes," said Ms Correa. "They have dances and cock-fights up there.
What more information does the army want?"