OUTLOOK ON THE SELF-DEFENSE GROUPS

Discussions about the self-defense groups revolve around two conventional ideas about their relationship with the Colombian State. Firstly, that the state finances, organizes and plans joint operations with the self-defense groups, and secondly, that the state is tolerant and indulgent, and fails to use its capacity to investigate, punish and confront the self-defense groups. This outlook on the self-defense groups, and the elements and details mentioned in the previous pages, allow more accurate criteria for analysis to be identified.

1. Although it is true that 1960s regulations allowed the association of civilians for security purposes, it is also a truth that criminal legislation penalized the organization, promotion or funding of illegal armed groups since 1989.

Today the self-defense groups are autonomous organizations. The exponential growth of these groups ever since the 1980s is closely associated with drug trafficking influences and with the participation of a wide variety of social sectors. There is a long tradition of reactive support for this and other violent illegal forms among various social sectors. But such support is not backed by the state.

The fact that the self-defense groups constitute an autonomous enterprise does not deny the fact that a number of elements within the state have assumed a permissive attitude, and even one of complicity. Nevertheless, such behavior is not a response to a strategy orchestrated in the highest levels of the state. It is the product of corruption or personal convictions, and is being investigated and penalized by the relevant authorities.

2. Public servants have frequently been the victims of attacks perpetrated by self-defense groups. Examples include the so-called massacre of La Rochela, already mentioned, and a massacre that took place on October 3, 1997 in the municipality of San Carlos de Guaroa, department of Meta, where one official of the Prosecutor General's Office, three members of the CTI, attached to the Prosecutor General's Meta Regional Office, one DAS detective, and also an army major, the head of the GAULA Group, two volunteer soldiers and three regular soldiers, were assassinated. More recently, on March 10, 2000, seven members of the CTI were kidnapped by individuals belonging to self-defense groups in Minguillo municipal district, municipality of La Paz, department of Cesar. They are still missing.

Many cases of attacks on public servants, particularly officials of the Prosecutor General's Office, can be mentioned. Suffice it to mention the fact that, according to information provided by the Prosecutor General's Office, at least 80 CTI investigators have been murdered by these groups, the guerrillas and common criminals in the past eight years. It is then possible to affirm, without a hint of a doubt, that the self-defense groups bear a great deal of responsibility for these deaths, and that their aim is to prevent the judicial authorities from investigating their illegal activities.

3. The self-defense groups make strenuous efforts to present themselves as a force, if not national, at least multi-regional, with a responsible and well-coordinated command. They maintain that their sole purpose is to contain and resist the guerrillas, and to expel them from areas on which they exert influence. They mention such examples as the Middle Magdalena, Córdoba and Urabá regions. However, a proper analysis shows that this is just one form of presentation. The fact must be stressed that there are other elements that play a significant part in their expansion and development, different from confronting the guerrillas. These include taking control of illicit-crop areas, hiding drug processing laboratories, concealing stockpiling centers, protecting trade routes, expanding and introducing technology into agricultural properties, increasing the value of lands, and setting up rearguard systems to protect drugs traffickers or well-known leaders of self-defense groups. These are additional aims disguised as fighting against subversive groups, much in evidence in the regions mentioned above.

One characteristic feature of the self-defense groups in the past few years is that they have succeeded in diversifying their sources of financing. It is a well-known fact that they draw support from drugs traffickers and emerald dealers. But it should also be taken into consideration that they also find support among landowners, traders, entrepreneurs and middle class sectors, who are increasingly committing themselves to a civilian-led counter-insurgence scheme.The self-defense groups' fundamental strategy consists in attacking the civilian population, with the argument that they collaborate with subversive groups. However, they have now adopted other methods. They are confronting the guerrillas militarily, have multiplied kidnappings, and are trying to display the outline of a political project.