NEW CHAPTER IN DRUG TRADE

In Wake of Colombia's U.S.-Backed Disarmament Process,
Ex-Paramilitary Fighters Regroup Into Criminal Gangs

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's cocaine trade has never been
controlled by a single cast of characters.

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar and other flamboyant cocaine cowboys,
wielding billions of dollars and armies of hit men, nearly brought
the state to its knees. Their deaths ushered in more discreet groups,
so-called baby cartels, that outsourced trafficking and murder to
gangs. Then came a paramilitary force that relied on cocaine to fund
a war against Marxist rebels, a bloody phase the government says
ended with the disarmament of militias last year.

Now, in the latest evolution of Colombia's unremitting drug trade,
new criminal gangs led by former mid-level paramilitary commanders
have surfaced in about half of Colombia's 32 states. Authorities here
estimate that the groups -- steeped in violence and outfitted like
armies -- have a combined force of anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000
fighters. As many as 17 percent of them are said to be former
paramilitary members.

Their emergence -- outlined in interviews in two regions heavily
affected by drug trafficking and in recent reports by the
Organization of American States, the Colombian government and the
United Nations -- is undermining a demobilization that authorities
tout as having removed 32,000 fighters from a long, shadowy war.

"The danger is that these groups have a big fountain of revenue that
comes from narco-trafficking and permits them to develop, recruit
people and to continue affecting the population," said Sergio
Caramagna, chief of an OAS team that monitored the three-year
disarmament process.

The OAS document and other reports conclude that the new groups do
not have a central command or the national reach or political
objectives of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the
powerful coalition of paramilitary groups that was officially
demobilized. That organization, known by the Spanish initials AUC,
worked closely with Colombian army units and corrupt politicians to
erode support for leftist guerrillas, launching campaigns that killed
thousands of civilians.

The overarching objective of the new groups is to control Colombia's
lucrative cocaine trade, and they confront those individuals or
groups that stand in their way. At the same time, some of the groups
are using the same tactics that paramilitary groups were known for:
engaging guerrillas in combat, targeting rights workers and
displacing peasants from farmland.

Political analysts say the emergence of the groups happened because
the government failed to adequately track mid-level commanders, some
of whom posed as low-level fighters during demobilization ceremonies.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of those mid-level commanders saw an
opportunity to obtain the power and influence they had never had,
said Ivan Duque, a former paramilitary commander, and Rafael Garcia,
a former intelligence operative convicted of collaborating with
paramilitary groups. Those commanders were then able to appeal to
rank-and-file fighters, who never viewed the government stipend and
workshops that came with the disarmament as a viable alternative to a
life of crime.

"These guys don't know anything except how to fire a gun, how to kill
people," said Garcia. "And as long as they don't find jobs, they'll
do what they know how to do."

In the northeastern state of Cesar, where politicians and
paramilitary fighters formed an alliance to raid state coffers and
rig elections, little appears to have changed. After the AUC
demobilized, a group calling itself the Black Eagles entered the
southern part of the state with 150 heavily armed men in December
2005 and massacred villagers.

Reports show that group and others have since assumed control of the
lucrative cocaine pipeline through the porous Venezuelan border. Like
the AUC, the new groups have also tried to influence politics in the
region ahead of next month's local elections, said Alejandra Barrios,
director of the Bogota-based Electoral Observation Mission, which
monitors elections. In August, one politician was slain, and others
have been threatened.

"They call them new groups but to me they're the same old groups --
what's new is their name," said Alfonso Palacio, a mayoral candidate
in the village of La Jagua, who says he's been targeted by the groups.

Government officials say the percentage of former AUC fighters in the
new groups remains low. And Gen. Oscar Naranjo, chief of the National
Police, said in an interview that the police, the army and federal
prosecutors have arrested 1,700 of the fighters since March 2006.
"For us it's a priority to combat and neutralize them," he said.

American officials, while recognizing the problem, said the new
groups cannot be compared to the AUC of old, which the Bush
administration says was dismantled with American aid.

"Obviously it's disappointing that everybody doesn't demobilize or
the groups are able to continue to traffic and to harm individuals in
Colombia," John P. Walters, the White House drug policy chief, said
by phone from Washington. "But on the other hand, again the enormous
achievement was to reduce the power and the capacity of what was
operating before the demobilization process began."

Rafael Pardo, an author and former Colombian senator, says the
government has underplayed the nature of the threat. He and others
have said the percentage of former paramilitary fighters in the
emerging groups could be much higher than the government contends,
because it's likely that the AUC never actually came close to having
32,000 members.

Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based
organization that studies conflicts worldwide, said in a recent
lengthy report that in some cases, the commitment of government
forces to fighting the groups has been low because of drug-related
corruption or because the priority remains fighting the guerrillas.

"The new generation of paramilitaries are the new face of the
drug-trafficking business and the evolution of paramilitaries into a
purely drug-trafficking organization," said Jeremy McDermott, author
of the Crisis Group report. "But it's equally dangerous to
institutions because the corruptive power of drug trafficking is as
relevant as ever."

The developments are being watched closely by Democrats and some
Republicans in Washington, who have already held up a free trade
agreement with Colombia because of concerns over rights abuses and
what they say has been a flawed demobilization process.

"The idea of the demobilization was good, but the fact that they
could so easily regroup and get weapons, I've found a concern," said
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations
subcommittee on foreign operations.

Among the most troubled regions is the sparsely populated state of
Nario, in the southwest. There, new groups have emerged to fight for
control of drug-trafficking corridors while threatening rights
workers and indigenous leaders, whom they accuse of ties to rebels.
"They want to intimidate, to shut us up because we're fighting for
our rights," said Robinson Pai, a leader in the Awa community.

Though 689 fighters from a paramilitary unit known as the Liberators
of the South demobilized on July 30, 2005, OAS investigators found
little change in the dynamics of the conflict in Nari?o. The number
of homicides shot up from 491 in 2004 to 797 in 2006.

In interviews in the softly rolling mountains around the town of
Egido, officials and poor farmers said the groups go by several
names: New Generation, Black Eagles, the Black Hand and the Machos.
But it's believed that their leadership, perhaps more than anywhere
else, has remained in the hands of old paramilitary commanders.

One powerful warlord, Carlos Mario Jimnez, had participated in the
demobilization, but authorities charged that he continued directing
paramilitary groups from jail. President Alvaro Uribe recently ended
special privileges that would have afforded him a light sentence for
admitting to his crimes, and the United States is now preparing to
extradite him.

"The government insists that the paramilitaries have demobilized and
do not operate," said Nancy Villota, a lawyer with one of Nario's
main human rights groups. "Our experience shows that they've not come
back because they've simply never gone anywhere. They've always been here."
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