COLOMBIA WAR TAKES 'RIGHT' TURN

BOGOTA, Colombia - The year 2003 opened with a boost for Colombia's largest
anti-Marxist vigilante group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC), which has seven factions totaling an estimated 11,000 combatants,
mostly peasants, ex-soldiers and some ex- guerrillas. Top Stories

This month, President Alvaro Uribe, who took office Aug. 7, began
exploratory talks with factions of the outlawed AUC and reportedly two or
three smaller vigilante groups - something his predecessors never did. Most
of the AUC suspended offensive operations Dec. 1.

In contrast, peace talks between the government and the largest Marxist
guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), thought
to have up to 17,000 combatants, ended a year ago. And the No. 2 Marxist
guerrilla group - the National Liberation Army (ELN), believed to have
3,000 to 6,000 fighters - recently broke off "sounding out" contacts with
Mr. Uribe, claiming he was wooing their bitter enemy, the AUC, which the
president denies.

"The fundamental difference between the guerrillas and the AUC," said David
Spencer, a security consultant in Washington, "seems to be that AUC doesn't
want to overthrow the government, and they don't believe in quashing
private enterprise, where the guerrillas want to overthrow the government
and want to establish a centrally controlled economy."

While the AUC is often labeled rightist, it says it seeks "capitalism with
a human face."

"We don't attack the state. We are peasants who ask the state for
protection and social development," said Jorge, an alias of the regional
commander of the AUC's Centauros unit in the central plains. "If the
government had given us security against the guerrillas, our self-defense
forces would never have existed."

The FARC and ELN were founded in the mid-1960s with no more than a few
hundred members. They reportedly received limited Soviet-bloc support
during the Cold War, and have largely financed themselves by extortion,
kidnappings and the illegal drug trade.

By the 1970s and '80s, ranchers, farmers, peasants and business people
started forming private "autodefensas" - often-illegal self-defense groups
against guerrillas in areas of little or no state presence. Some were
better armed and organized than others. Some were financed by drug barons
and other wealthy individuals or groups, who used them against rivals,
labor agitators and others.

The AUC was set up in 1997 under the leadership of Carlos Castano, who also
leads its largest faction, the Campesino Self-Defense Forces of Cordoba and
Uraba (ACCU), in northwest Colombia. The ACCU represents more than 75
percent of the AUC, according to Mr. Castano, who says retired Israeli
military instructors trained him in Israel in 1983.

"The AUC is not a cause, it is a symptom," said Tom Marks, an American
counterinsurgency expert. "It is a reaction to the extreme violence that
FARC and ELN have perpetrated in the marginalized, rural areas. The groups
which comprise AUC have grown like wildfire because there has been no real
alternative for those who would engage in local self- defense."

FARC's propaganda chief, Alfonso Cano, disagrees. He said the
paramilitaries are creations of "the oligarchy," a clandestine weapon of
the state, and a reason why guerrillas have taken up arms.

Past and present Colombian governments have rejected accusations of
institutional collaboration with illegal self-defense groups and cite
battles against them, casualties, and arrests of vigilantes and of soldiers
and policemen who collaborate with them.

In the past, the state occasionally tried to organize civilian defense
groups, such as the Convivir, with mixed results. Colombia's courts
eventually banned them partly because of abuses.

But Mr. Uribe has made re-establishing a form of legal civilian defense a
cornerstone of his security policy. As Antioquia province governor in the
1990s, he oversaw what some say was one of the most effective Convivir
programs. As president, he is now enlisting a nationwide network of
civilian informants and up to 15,000 "campesino soldiers" who serve in
their own communities.

While civil libertarians worry about abuses and the possibility of
legalizing vigilantes, Mr. Uribe's supporters say this policy has
frustrated numerous terrorism attempts. Nevertheless, AUC officers say it
does not go far enough.

"Irregular warfare is necessary to defeat the guerrillas or force them to
negotiate," said Jaime Deluyer, the alias of an AUC political officer in
central Meta province. "It is necessary to give the guerrillas their own
medicine." The guerrillas and the vigilantes have used the same tactics,
such as massacres and killing enemy sympathizers.

Increasingly in recent years, AUC has expanded into FARC areas of southern
and eastern Colombia. Similarly, FARC has made inroads in AUC's
northwestern bastion. Hundreds have been killed.

"The AUC's irregular warfare is part of the problem, not part of the
solution," said Marc Chernick, a professor of government at Georgetown
University who taught for several years at both the Universidad de Los
Andes and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, both in Bogota.

But Colombian government and ombudsman statistics indicate AUC's
human-rights record is improving. According to Defense Ministry figures,
guerrillas killed 1,060 civilians in 2001, while vigilantes killed 1,028.
From January to Nov. 30, 2002, the guerrillas killed 916, and the
vigilantes, 397.

There are skeptics. "It is very difficult to ascertain numbers," said a
U.S. government official who asked not to be named. "There is no excuse for
human-rights violations by anyone."

Said Robin Kirk of Human Rights Watch: "Over time, there have been
variations in numbers and methods [of abuses]. Currently, due in large part
to internal problems, fear of the U.S., and a realization that massacres
provoked bad publicity, [AUC] atrocities are down. But I view this as
temporary." The bloody record of leftist guerrillas "is absolutely on the
same channel," she added.

Last Sept. 4, the AUC announced it would not commit massacres. Observers
say the group has shifted its strategy to killing victims in small batches.
Even so, last month the AUC was blamed for killing 11 persons near San
Carlos in Antioquia province. FARC reportedly killed 17 persons near the
same area on Jan. 16.

"The [AUC] image makeover is more for the benefit of Colombian public
opinion," said Mr. Chernick. "Past atrocities are still indictable. An
amnesty would be more acceptable to public opinion if AUC leaders are
viewed as legitimate political actors and not just assassins and drug
runners. Internationally, image really shouldn't be a factor, either,
concerning U.S. extradition requests or potential trials by the
International Criminal Court."

Since last September, the U.S. Justice Department has asked for the
extradition of Mr. Castano and AUC military commander Salvatore Mancuso on
cocaine charges. And since 2001, the State Department has designated the
AUC a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO). FARC and ELN were similarly
designated earlier. This authorizes U.S. legal sanctions, such as freezing
their financial assets in the United States and denying visas to their
supporters.

While conceding that their forces "tax" coca crops, Mr. Castano and Mr.
Mancuso deny the AUC trafficks in drugs, saying such accusations come from
anonymous sources who seek favor or money from U.S. and Colombian
law-enforcement officials.

Mr. Castano also rejects the "foreign terrorist" label, saying that AUC has
never harmed a U.S. citizen or threatened U.S. security - the bases for FTO
designation.

On Jan. 22, AUC handed over three Americans to humanitarian workers, after
taking them in what it said was"protective custody" for eight days along
the lawless Panama-Colombia border. Robert Young Pelton, a TV producer and
dual U.S. and Canadian citizen, said they never felt kidnapped and were
treated well. He speculated that AUC took them to prevent their seeing
atrocities.

The guerrillas, on the other hand, have kidnapped and killed Americans.
Last week,a reported ELN communique announced that group was "retaining"
American photographer Scott Dalton and British reporter Ruth Morris in
eastern Colombia until undefined "political and military" conditions are
realized.

Last July, Mr. Castano and Mr. Mancuso withdrew their ACCU faction from
AUC, complaining they were being unjustly blamed for abuses and
drug-trafficking committed by rogue members. Weeks later, AUC was again
whole, and AUC officers say internal disputes and disputes with independent
vigilante factions are being mended.

What are theprospects for talks between the government and illegal
self-defense forces? "The sides are working very sincerely," Justice
Minister Fernando Londono told reporters.

"We are optimistic," said Jorge of Centauros. "Uribe is like heaven
compared to Pastrana." Former President Andres Pastrana ceded a
Switzerland-size safe haven to FARC for more than three years in exchange
for peace talks, reclaiming it when negotiations ruptured last February.
Mr. Uribe says he will not hand over territory.

The vigilantes and the government are holding talks in private. Issues
reportedly being discussed now include logistics for meetings, freeing
kidnap victims, returning refugees, and the purging of minors from
vigilante ranks. The most thorny issues, according to experts, are judicial
and security questions.

Said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Dec. 4 in Bogota: "The United
States will stand behind President Uribe as he moves down this road. [But]
of course, the extradition requests remain in place. These gentlemen have
much to account for, not only under U.S. law, but under Colombian law as well."

Chief government negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo doesn't rule out the
possibility that some demobilized AUC members with clean human-rights
records could eventually join state security forces, as have some ex-
guerrillas.

Said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Gordon Sumner, who was President Reagan's
special envoy to Latin America: "The battle is never too crowded with
friends. First, have them answer the law, cut out the drugs, and embrace
human rights. Try to bring them under the tent, to fight against the
guerrillas, who are the biggest threat."

But contends Georgetown's Mr. Chernick, "dialogue between the Colombian
government and the AUC will not bring peace."

"If the state could re-assert its own monopoly over the war effort against
the guerrillas, then the lines of the conflict would become sharper and
clearer, with the state on one side and the guerrillas on the other. This
would constitute progress. Eventually, it could lay the foundation for a
future negotiated settlement."