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Plan Colombia - Six Years LaterBy Adam Isacson November 2006

A Publication of the Center for International Policy

In July 2000, Bill Clinton signed into law a bill appropriatingnearly a billion dollars for Colombia, most of it aid toColombia’s military and police. In the six years that followed,only Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan and Egypt have received moreaid from the United States.

The Bush administration enthusiastically continued this aidfor “Plan Colombia,” a multi-year counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and development program. U.S. aid to Colombiasince 2000 now totals $4.7 billion. Overeighty percent of that amount - $3.8 billion,or $1.5 million per day - has gone to theColombian security forces for weapons,helicopters, planes, boats, combatequipment, training, advice, intelligence, andthe spraying of herbicides over 2 millionacres of Colombian territory. The remaining20 percent has supported ruraldevelopment, judicial reform, human rights,and assistance to some of the millions ofColombians forced from their homes by adecades-long, bloody conflict.

Since 2002, U.S. aid has supported agovernment in Bogotá led by Álvaro Uribe,a fervent believer in military force and freemarkets as the antidotes to Colombia’srelated ills of poverty, violence,narcotrafficking, weak governance andimpunity. Uribe’s “Democratic Security”strategy has complemented Plan Colombiawith a sharp rise in military spending and agreatly increased deployment of troops andpolice throughout the national territory.Uribe has also conducted negotiations withpro-government paramilitary militias,seeking the demobilization of wealthy,powerful warlords with strong ties to the

military, large landholders, and the drug trade.

The U.S. and Colombian governments don’t hold back whenpraising this convergence of “Plan Colombia” and“Democratic Security.” In June, the Republican-controlledHouse Appropriations Commitee hailed “the successes ofPlan Colombia and the measurable improvements that haveresulted in the everyday lives of the Colombian people. Somehave declared Colombia the ‘greatest success story in Latin

Report of a CIP staff visit to Putumayo and Medellín, Colombia

With U.S. support, the military presence in Putumayo has increased, butsocial investment lags behind. As a result, security has improved only slightly.

2America.’” Nicholas Burns, theState Department’s number-threeofficial, wrote in an April MiamiHerald op-ed, “The UnitedStates’ investment in Colombia ispaying off. Colombia is clearly abetter place than it was beforewe embarked on our joint

undertaking to win Colombia back from the criminal gangsthat were destroying the country.”

Sweeping statements like these, especially when made byofficials evaluating their own programs, cry out forindependent verification. In fact, a closer look quickly revealsthat the real picture is mixed at best. While violence levelshave improved in much of the country, in many key respects- illegal drug production, impunity for abuse and corruption,the weakness of non-military institutions, the power ofparamilitary criminals - the extent of failure is alarming.

The Center for International Policy has closely monitoredU.S. policy toward Colombia since the late 1990s. Thismonitoring has included frequent visits to regions that directlyfeel the impact of both U.S. initiatives and the Colombiangovernment’s U.S.-supported security policies.

This report presents the main findings of our most recentmonitoring visit, in July 2006, exactly six years after the “PlanColombia” aid package became law. The author traveled toPutumayo, the remote rural region where “Plan Colombia”got started, and to Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city,where the best and worst aspects of the Uribe government’ssecurity strategy are vividly on display.

I. An Update from Plan Colombia’s“Ground Zero”This was the third visit of CIP staff since 2001 to Putumayo,a small jungle department (province) in Colombia’s far south,along the border with Ecuador. During this period, we havealso traveled near Putumayo, once to the Ecuadorian side ofthe international border, and once to a meeting of Putumayocommunity leaders just over the departmental border in east-ern Nariño.

We keep coming back to Putumayo because there is nobetter place to gauge the impact – the success or failure – ofU.S. policy in Colombia.

This province of perhaps 350,000 people is where “PlanColombia,” the major escalation of U.S. military assistancethat essentially continues today, got its start back in 2000-

2001. At that time, Putumayo had far more coca (the plantused to make cocaine) than any of Colombia’s 32 depart-ments. It also had a strong presence of guerrillas from theRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whileits principal towns were being methodically, brutally takenover by paramilitaries.

Putumayo was the focus of a military “Push to the South”that lay at the heart of the Clinton administration’s big 2000aid package. Supported by U.S. funds, trainers and con-tractors, a new Colombian Army Counter-Narcotics Bri-gade, bristling with helicopters, would clear Putumayo’s coca-growing zones of armed groups. Augmented counter-nar-cotics police would vastly increase their campaign of fumi-gating the coca fields with herbicides sprayed from aircraft.In their wake would come alternative-development programsto help Putumayo’s farmers participate in the legal economy.

Six years and many hundreds of millions of dollars later, didthe strategy work in Putumayo?

Though there are a few bright spots, the answer is clearly“no.” Like much else in Colombia, the results in Putumayotell us that the strategy needs to be very long-term, mustconsult closely with local leaders and organizations, and mustabandon its narrow emphasis on military operations and fu-

Putumayo, in Colombia’s southwest, is wherePlan Colombia got started in 2000.

President Álvaro Uribe.

3migation. By all appearances, though, these lessons haven’tcome close to sinking in.

A series of observations follows, based on a three-day lateJuly visit to the municipalities of Puerto Asís, Orito and LaHormiga.

The security situation appeared to be better than in pastvisits, though levels of security in Putumayo tend to oscillatewildly between relative safety and extreme danger. Right now,travel along main roads is possible, while the likelihood ofrunning into guerrillas is considered to be low. Road travel atnight is still inadvisable, though doable.

This owes in part to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe,who oredered anenlarged military toincrease its pres-ence along previ-ously abandonedmain roads, popu-lation centers, andvulnerable infra-structure sites. Wepassed throughmore army and po-lice checkpointsthan on earlier vis-its, and the securityforces’ presencewas greater in gen-eral. Small contin-gents of soldierswere regularly sta-tioned at key en-ergy and transpor-tation sites, includ-ing the rebuilt bridge over the Guamués River, which theFARC had blown up before CIP’s last visit in 2004 (we hadto board a canoe to get across). Many of the soldiers andpolice we saw were clearly from elite units, judging fromtheir physical size and the quality of their equipment. (Thesoldiers who patted us down at checkpoints, however, weregenerally smaller and younger.)

New police stations had been established in some small townsalong the main road. Also notable, especially in the oil-pro-ducing town of Orito, was the presence of troops from anew energy and road infrastructure-protection army brigade.Soldiers and police in many posts sat behind bags of cementpiled high into walls, a bulletproof defense (known astrincheras) that resembled preparations for a flood.

Though we’ve never run into uniformed guerrillas on any ofour visits to Putumayo, one usually sees ample evidence oftheir presence. Guerrilla graffiti – once so common that itwas even spray-painted on the sides of tractor-trailers thathad passed through FARC roadblocks – was faded, whenvisible at all.

Much more visible, though, were scars from the last flare-upof guerrilla violence in Putumayo, at the beginning of thisyear in the run-up to March legislative elections. A guerrilla“armed stoppage” (paro armado) halted road traffic be-tween towns for weeks, causing shortages, while attacks onpower lines left much of Putumayo in the dark. Along the

main road we sawburned patchesfrom trucks that theguerrillas set afirefor disobeying thestoppage. As onprevious visits,blackened vegeta-tion and pools ofsludge indicatedplaces where theguerrillas had re-cently blown holesin the oil pipelinethat follows themain road for muchof its length.

Episodes of in-creased guerrillaactivity, several lo-cal leaders said,

were still common and could happen at any time. One likelyreason was that a U.S.-supported military offensive imme-diately to the north of Putumayo, a two-year-old effort knownas “Plan Patriota,” had forced many guerrillas to relocate,increasing their numbers particularly in border departmentslike Putumayo, Nariño, Vaupés and Norte de Santander.By all accounts, the guerrillas’ grip on Putumayo’s rural zones– the majority of the department’s territory, away from theprincipal towns, the main road and the most-traveled rivers– was unchanged, if not stronger.

While the frequency of FARC attacks in the department wasreduced and limited to more remote areas, their intensitywhen they do occur has been greater. Body counts per at-

Continued on page 6

A burned tree and a pool of sludge show where the FARC guerrillas recentlybombed the local oil pipeline.

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While driving through Putumayo, our group decided to branchoff the main road and pay a quick visit to Orito, the maintown in the municipality (county) of the same name. We hadheard that one of the largest projects funded by the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) inPutumayo, an animal-food concentrates processing plant inthe town, was having some difficulties, and we wanted tofind out what was going on.

The plant’s concept appeared to make sense: take cropsthat are easily grown in Putumayo, like yuca and corn, andturn them into food for cows, pigs, chickens and other live-stock. USAID and its contractors helped to set up a pub-licly traded company to run the plant and invested over $2million to build the facility, buy machinery and perform stud-ies (feasibility, environmental impact, etc.).

This high-profile project, it was hoped, would help weanthousands of Putumayo’s farmers away from coca-growing,while turning a profit for its shareholders. It greatly raisedexpectations among a population battered by massive cocacultivation, relentless fumigation, chronic government neglectand constant violence at the hands of illegal armed groups.

We found the concentrates plant easily enough, as it waslocated right next to Orito’s oil refinery and the base of thearmy’s energy-infrastructure protection battalion. It is a great-looking facility, modern and clean, with intricate machinery,a cafeteria, meeting spaces, and a big plaque thanking USAIDfor making the whole thing possible.

Everything looked great, except the whole scene wasstrangely quiet. The expensive-looking machinery was idle.There were no animal-feed concentrates, yuca or corn to beseen anywhere. The plant was not functioning.

The big building was not empty, though. About forty peoplewere using it as a meeting space. When we arrived, severalhad gathered for a job-training workshop. Others, includingtwo Orito council members, were assembled elsewhere inthe building. When they saw us arrive, all stopped what theywere doing and gathered around us – and especially CIP’srepresentative, the lone U.S. citizen in the group.

Once we explained that we were not from the U.S. govern-ment, but independent investigators trying to figure out whathappened, everyone started talking at once. We were hit bya wave of anger and frustration. Things soon calmed down,

and we tried to take notes as quickly as we could. This ismore or less what the residents of Orito told us.

1. The concentrates plant cost about 6 billion pesos(US$2.5 million) to establish. It opened in late 2003and shut its doors in mid-2005. There are no plans tore-open it. The plant’s machinery is already being soldoff, and some had already been carted away. Those whohad been convinced to invest in the plant had lost money.

2. The main reason the concentrates plant failed was alack of inputs. Nobody wanted to sell it yuca or cornbecause it offered to buy it at prices considered to beridiculously low.

The plant offered to pay 120,000 pesos – about US$50– for a ton of yuca. That means 5 U.S. cents per kilo or2.2 cents per pound. The same kilo of yuca could besold in local produce markets for about eight times asmuch money. We were told that the cost of renting avehicle and transporting that ton of yuca through roadlessPutumayo to the processing plant would eat up morethan one-third of those 120,000 pesos.

It made no sense for local farmers to sell yuca or corn tothe concentrates plant, when they were guaranteed tolose money at the prices offered. The plant’s managersapparently took a “take it or leave it” attitude, not budg-ing on the price (and it is possible that they could notmake money at a higher price). The farmers, of course,were happy to “leave it,” selling yuca at better priceselsewhere, or braving the U.S.-funded herbicide fumi-gations and re-planting coca.

3. The plant was plagued by other problems that shouldhave been foreseen. The machinery, most of which wasapparently used and refurbished, never worked at any-where near top efficiency. Storage of yuca and seedswas a problem in Orito’s very humid climate.

4. Those with whom we spoke wondered how the ideaof a concentrates plant was chosen, alleging that the com-munity was never consulted. Others wondered why itwas located in oil-producing Orito, when better soils forgrowing yuca and corn were located in municipalitiesabout an hour’s drive to the south.

Since 2000, U.S.-funded planes have sprayed herbicides

Putumayo’s White Elephant, orHow Not to Win Hearts and Minds

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over 155,534 hectares (about 390,000 acres) ofPutumayo, making it the second most-fumigated ofColombia’s thirty-two departments during this period.The “stick” of fumigation has been strong and swift, butthe “carrot” of development aid has not only been smaller– only 20 percent of U.S. aid to Colombia is non-mili-tary – but it has been slower to arrive, haphazardlyplanned, and has largely failed to improve lives and live-lihoods. “Orito today is in its worst economic crisis,” acouncilmember told us.

Our experience in Orito was made possible by one ofthe most frustrating aspects of watching U.S. policy un-fold in Colombia over the past several years: its system-atic undervaluing and neglect of all things non-military.

For planners of U.S. assistance to Colombia, non-mili-tary programs have always been an afterthought. Fourout of five dollars in U.S. aid goes to Colombia’s armedforces, police, and fumigation program. Policymakershave placed a far lower priority on the rest of the aid,which supports governance and development.

Too often, these funds go to programs that are impro-vised, uncoordinated, left entirely up to contractors, carryhigh overhead costs, and appear to ignore completelythe lessons of similar programs attempted elsewhere.Oversight is weak, dubious claims of success go unques-tioned, and higher-level officials show little interest. It iseasy to get the impression – false or not – that nobody incharge of these projects cares whether they succeed:the point is to spend the money and demonstrate that anobjective was fulfilled. The Orito concentrates plant is aperfect example.

It is not news that progress will be only temporary untilColombians who live in depressed rural areas like Orito– a minority of the population living in the majority of thecountry’s territory – can trust their government to pro-tect them, to enforce laws and to make a functioninglegal economy possible. Counter-insurgency experts al-ways insist that “the people are the center of gravity.”

But in Orito, Putumayo – right in the middle of one of themain battlegrounds for the Colombian government’sU.S.-aided counter-insurgency effort – the people wetalked to are very angry. The angrier and more distrust-ful they get, the more likely it is that even the small secu-rity gains that the Uribe government has achieved inPutumayo will be reversed.

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tack have been much higher and damage to infrastructurehas been more costly. Just before we arrived, guerrillas hadkidnapped thirteen medical personnel in the rural zone ofPuerto Asís municipality, eventually releasing all but one ofthem. While we were present, combat was taking place alongthe Ecuadorian border; one night in La Hormiga we couldhear the periodic soft thud of what sounded like mortarrounds going off many miles away to the south.

For the most part, we heard few strong complaints aboutthe increased military and police presence in Putumayo.Nobody with whom we spoke denounced cases of seriousabuse or large-scale corruption at the hands of police orsoldiers, with the exception of some instances of rough treat-ment or disrespectful language.

Two issues, though, require attention. First, several indig-enous leaders expressed concern about the recent construc-tion of a military installation, part of the government’s largerCenter for Attention to the Border Zone (CENAF), on landbelonging to an indigenous reserve in San Miguel municipal-ity. We heard numerous complaints about the way in whichit was installed, with a refusal to dialogue and a flat insis-tence on national security priorities and the government’sright to be present wherever it wishes. We also heard con-cerns that the CENAF facility leaves the indigenous reservemore vulnerable than ever to guerrilla attack.

The other issue was a general consensus that military and

police efforts against “former”paramilitaries in Putumayo are stillminimal to nonexistent. Since 1999,paramilitaries – well-funded, well-organized rightist death squads thathave a history of working with thearmed forces – have dominatedPutumayo’s main towns and vied withthe FARC for income from coca cul-tivation and processing. They havemaintained this dominance by exer-cising brutality (first massacres, thenselective killings and “social cleans-ing” that continue today), providing security for residentsand businesses in the towns, and enjoying a nearly completeabsence of opposition from the security forces.

At some point around 2002 or 2003, the Putumayoparamilitaries’ leadership shifted from Carlos Castaño’sCórdoba and Urabá Self-Defense Groups (ACCU), whichclaimed to seek less involvement in the drug trade, to thepowerful Central Bolívar Bloc (BCB), which actively soughtnarco funding. The BCB officially demobilized early this year,one of the last paramilitary blocs to undergo this formal stepas part of a negotiated settlement with the government.

However, the BCB’s Putumayo branch appears to have con-tinued its activities with few changes. It still disputes controlover drugs and territory with the guerrillas, and continues tocarry out selective killings on a near-daily basis. “Macaco’sguys are still everywhere,” said one interviewee, referring to

the BCB’s most feared – if notmost visible – leader, who onceworked in Putumayo buying cocafor drug cartels.

While this was the first time thatwe visited Putumayo without see-ing uniformed paramilitaries, theirplainclothes presence was still inevidence. “Paraco,” mouthed acolleague as we sat in a PuertoAsís restaurant, nodding nervouslytoward two men passing slowly byon a motorcycle.

“Few notice that the young peoplein the high schools of Puerto Asís[Putumayo’s largest city] keep dis-appearing before the sad eyes oftheir friends,” Efrén Piña, an inves-tigator at the Bogotá-based hu-Plots of coca are smaller and harder to spot, but still visible from the main road.

Continued from page 3

Carlos MarioJiménez, alias

“Macaco.”

7man-rights group CINEP, wrote in October. “They march inthe streets to denounce their absence, but nobody listens tothem. Because it doesn’t matter either that three or fourpeople die every day in La Hormiga, for reasons that every-one knows but nobody says out loud.”

A few miles north of Puerto Asís, close to the large militarybase in the crossroads town of Santana, sits “Villa Sandra,”a large compound with a big house, a pond and recreationalfacilities. Six years ago, during the paramilitaries’ bloody take-over of Putumayo’s town centers, and then during the be-ginning of Plan Colombia’s execu-tion, Villa Sandra was theparamilitaries’ center of operations.Everyone in Puerto Asís – except,apparently, the military and police –knew that the paras were headquar-tered there, and that many whowere forcibly brought there never leftthe premises.

During our 2001 visit to Putumayo,Villa Sandra was very much in use.When we returned in 2004, it wasabandoned, and remains so now, itsfacilities in evident disrepair behinda high chain-link fence. Many inPutumayo believe that an inspectionof the compound’s grounds wouldreveal much about theparamilitaries’ activities in the zone– including, in some likelihood, massgraves. That Villa Sandra remainsuntouched and uninvestigated is elo-quent evidence of the paramilitaries’continued influence over Putumayo,despite the recent demobilizations.

In October 2006, a few residentsof San Miguel, a municipality insouthwestern Putumayo across fromEcuador, dared to guide represen-tatives of the Colombian attorney-general’s office to several massgraves that, they believed, heldbodies of loved ones killed by theparamilitaries between 2000 and2004. They said that while theyknew about the sites, they had tostay quiet for several years for fearof ending up in graves themselves.So far, sixty-one bodies have been

unearthed, but local residents estimate that over 500 may beburied in San Miguel. That they feel they can come forwardindicates that fear of Macaco’s paramilitaries may be ebbing- an important indicator of Putumayo’s security situation.

If the security situation is mixed but trending slightly better,patterns of coca cultivation are mixed but trending worse.When we visited Putumayo in early 2001 after PlanColombia’s first round of spraying, the department wasColombia’s undisputed coca capital – the UN measured

Coca Cultivation and Fumigation inColombia and Putumayo

Sources: U.S. Department of State, UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

866,000 hectares of the plant there in 2000. Coca was inabundance, with large plots easily visible from the main road,especially in the Guamués valley of southwestern Putumayo.

When we visited in April 2004, Putumayo had been hit withmassive herbicide fumigation – over 125,000 hectaressprayed between 2000 and the end of 2003. Coca was nolonger visible from the main road, while overgrown fieldsindicated where it had been before. Coca was still present –a short drive down any side road made that clear enough,where plots, most of them smaller than before and oftennewly planted, were easy to find – but the spray planes haddeeply cut back cultiva-tion. By the end of2004, the UN’s satellitedata found only 4,400hectares of coca in all ofPutumayo.

This stunning reductionis proving to be tempo-rary. As coca cultivationmoved to other parts ofthe country, particularlythe neighboring depart-ment of Nariño, thespray planes andcounter-narcotics bri-gades left Putumayo tofollow it.

In the absence of bettereconomic options, theabsence of massiveeradication has had apredictable result: cocais returning toPutumayo, and it is do-ing so quickly. The UNnoted a doubling of coca cultivation in the department be-tween 2004 and 2005 (from 4,400 to nearly 9,000 hect-ares), and replanting continues. What we saw in Putumayobears this out: unlike 2004, we were once again able to spotcoca cultivation from the main road, in apparent defiance ofthe increased military and police presence along that sameroad. Plots are smaller than they were in 2001, and a bitharder to see – on hillsides or even amid overgrowth – butthey are definitely back. Meanwhile, prices offered for cocapaste remain low – about 1.6 million pesos or US$650 –indicating that scarcity is not a problem for buyers.

While the recent increase in coca has not been great enoughto bring a return to the late-nineties gold-rush boom years,there is money in Putumayo’s economy – at least its illegalsector. The discos and boutiques in jungle boomtowns likeLa Hormiga and Puerto Asís remain open for business – wesaw no empty storefronts, and the bars and billiard hallswere overflowing in La Hormiga on Saturday night. Manypeople continue to be getting paid.

Writes Piña, the CINEP investigator,“In the major towns oflower Putumayo one sees ... the return of the narcotraffickingmafias of Valle del Cauca [the department that includes Cali],the drug lords who walk calmly through the streets, guarded

by “demobilized”people, impassivelygreeting everyone andimposing prices for thepurchase of coca base.”

Times are harder forthose not participating inthe coca trade. Manywith whom we spokeused the word “de-pressed” to describe thestate of Putumayo’s le-gal economy. The re-duction of coca-grow-ing from 1999-2001 lev-els has meant less moneycirculating overall, asituation that has beencompounded by a stag-nation in prices offeredfor most legal crops.

A symptom of thedepartment’s rural eco-nomic crisis is a notableincrease in migration

from the countryside to town centers. A vivid example wason display from the road on the way into the town of Orito,where a large number of people from the county’s rural zone(800 was the estimate we heard) had just invaded a patch ofland whose ownership was unclear. Living out in the openunder sheets of plastic, the settlers hoped that their eco-nomic prospects would be better in the center of the oil-producing town. It was a sight one would expect to findperhaps on the outskirts of Medellín or Cali – but not Orito,a town of perhaps 25,000 people.

The state of Putumayo’s legal economy has not been helped

Tent city on the outskirts of Orito.

9appreciably by the alternative development programsthat were supposed to be the “soft” or “carrot” side of thefumigation strategy, intended to help coca-growers find newways to make a living. It is hard to believe that the U.S. andColombian governments have invested nearly $60 million inPutumayo since 2000.

While some projects appear to be having success and buy-in – particularly cooperatives, assistance to indigenous com-munities, and specialty crops like black pepper and vanilla –the overall reaction we heard was one of frustration.

A major source of this frustration is the road network, acrucial priority if legal products are to have any hope of mak-ing it to market. Lack of roads not only adds to the isolationof communities that remain in the grip of armed groups; itmakes it very difficult to get any crops to market – with theexception of cocapaste, which allows sev-eral hectares’ harvest tofit in one bag.

Nearly six years afterPlan Colombia began inPutumayo, even themain road between itscapital, Mocoa, and itslargest city, Puerto Asís– a stretch of less than100 miles – has not beenpaved. The road is dirt.(However, paving is cur-rently underway be-tween Puerto Asís andSantana, covering aboutthe first eight miles of thetrip to Mocoa.) Thesegment of road that is paved, between Santana and LaDorada, was paved well before Plan Colombia began,funded by the state oil company in order to service the pipe-line that runs along that section of road – and even this hasdeteriorated since our first visit to Putumayo. All other roads,including those leading to significant towns and villages offthe main road, are unpaved and in bone-jarringly bad con-dition, if they exist at all.

Beyond the road network, we heard several complaints aboutalternative development projects’ design and management.For the most part, these concerns are common to alterna-tive development projects – indeed, rural development ef-forts – all over the world. People complained that their com-munities were not consulted in the projects’ design, that out-

side experts unfamiliar with the region told them what cropswere most promising, and were often wrong. (The bitterexperience of a multimillion-dollar animal-feed plant in Orito,which opened in 2003 and closed in 2005, is an importantexample. See pages 4-5.) They cited a lack of help withmarketing crops once they had been produced: transportingthe product on the poor road network and making connec-tions with buyers willing to pay enough for the farmer toclear a profit. Many said that credit was still impossible tocome by, and even when it was available, lenders often failedto take into account that many crops take years to producetheir first harvest.

Many with whom we spoke were particularly resentful ofperceived layers of “middlemen” in the development assis-

tance process. In theirview, USAID’s contrac-tors, and their Colom-bian (and rarelyPutumayo-based) sub-contractors, have ac-crued the lion’s share ofdevelopment assistancefor themselves. Each linkin the chain, they assert,has squandered re-sources on overhead,salaries, consultants,and in some cases pettycorruption, leaving onlya trickle of investmentfor the recipient com-munities.

In defense of the alter-native development programs, those we spoke with had fewconcrete suggestions for alternative crops that could pros-per in Putumayo – at least in the absence of decent roads,reliable security, enforceable property rights, access to credit,and much else.

However, we did hear a good deal of interest in developinga market for the many Amazon-basin fruits that Putumayoproduces in abundance but are rarely available elsewhere,even elsewhere in Colombia. Products like chontaduro, lulo,manzana de agua, tomate de árbol, arazá, or uchuva couldfind a market in the United States, though currently a seriesof non-tariff barriers – particularly standards for importedproduce – prevent them from entering. The domestic mar-ket is not sufficient for such fruits, which are so ubiquitous

Putumayo’s main road still awaits paving.

10that they fetch only rock-bottom prices. We shared a ridewith a farmer who lost a pile of money trying to grow arazálast year, only to find that the prices were laughably low. Hesaid he was thankful that he had kept a little bit of coca togive himself a financial cushion.

While in La Hormiga, we were able to attend a day-longmeeting attended by governors of indigenous reserves. Mostof the twelve indigenous nations found in Putumayo wererepresented: Cofán, Inga, Pasto, Nasa, Awá, Embera,Yanacona, and others. They had gathered to discuss PlanColombia: how it has impacted them, what was to comeand what they could do to prepare for it.

For these, the communities with the deepest roots inPutumayo, Plan Colombia is only the latest of several closeencounters that have left them wary of western “modernity”and the global economy.

A century ago, Putumayo – a nearly empty zone with analmost entirely indigenous population of perhaps a few thou-sand – was at the center of a boom in rubber production.The mostly foreign owners of rubber plantations enslavedand terrorized the region’s indigenous people as they soughtto extract the product. (A harrowing account of this periodcan be read in anthropologist Michael Taussig’s classic 1987study Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man.) Dur-ing the late 1960s and early 1970s, the discovery of oil ledto another rush of investors and settlers. Today, Putumayo isnumber three among Colombia’s oil-producing departments.As in the country’s other oil zones, though, one sees littleevidence of oil wealth, and plansfor new drilling continue to be fre-quent subjects of controversy.Twenty years ago, Putumayoplayed host to a new export-ori-ented bonanza, one that brought ineven more settlers from elsewherein Colombia: the boom in cocaproduction that persists today andcontinues to make the departmentone of Colombia’s most violent.

For Putumayo’s indigenous com-munities, each of these events hasmeant an influx of outsiders, theftof land, displacement from terri-tory, and weakened social fabricand cultural traditions. It isunsurprising, then, that they discussPlan Colombia as inseparable from

Colombia’s free trade pact with the United States (currentlysigned and awaiting ratification), big foreign investments –particularly in oil – and fears of massive infrastructure“megaprojects” that would evict them from their land.

The picture is more complicated than that, not least becauseseveral Putumayo indigenous communities have accepted,and benefited from, assistance through USAID-funded PlanColombia programs. But these communities clearly fear thatthe “next phase” of Plan Colombia will involve“desterritorialización” – forced displacement from ances-tral lands – in favor of foreign investment projects. The in-stallation of the CENAF military base and recent disputeswith a Canadian oil company are being viewed as harbin-gers of what is to come as Plan Colombia proceeds. TheU.S. and Colombian governments must endeavor, throughadherence to the rule of law and through non-military invest-ments, to convince them that this is not the case.

On the trip back to the airport in Puerto Asís, our drivertuned in to the army’s radio station, which mixes popularmusic with public-service announcements encouraging guer-rillas to desert. Flying out of Puerto Asís, it was easy to spotplots of coca carved out of Putumayo’s swiftly disappearingjungle. Also evident was the near-total isolation in which toomany of the department’s citizens live. Looking east to theedge of visibility are hundreds of parcels of land gougedfrom the surrounding forest, most with small houses in themiddle. No roads or rivers appear to penetrate anywherenear these landholdings. Pushed by a lack of opportunityelsewhere and pulled by the perverse incentives of the coca

Source: Government of the municipality of Medellín.

11economy, a small but significant portion of southernColombia’s rural population continues to live far beyond thereach of its government – with the exception of itsgovernment’s spray planes.

Whether viewed from the air or from the ground, Putumayooffers abundant reminders of how much needs to be done tomake citizens out of millions of marginalized Colombians.And how little Plan Colombia – with its emphasis on militaryforce and fumigation – has helped to achieve that goal.

II. Why Is Medellín Safer?For much of the world, Medellín is synonymous with vio-lence. Colombia’s second-largest city resides in the publicconsciousness as one of the most dangerous places in theworld, a lawless urban nightmare dominated by drug lords,gangs and guerrillas. Tell someone from Washington that youare going to Medellín, and he or she will invariably tell you tobe careful.

Yet if recent statistics are accurate, Medellín is actually saferthan Washington. Last year, after three years of steeply de-clining violence measures, Medellín’s murder rate totaled32.5 killings for every 100,000 inhabitants. This comparesfavorably with U.S. cities like Washington (45), Detroit (42)and Baltimore (42). Medellín today is about as violent asAtlanta.

Everyone CIP spoke with during a few days in the city –right, left and center – was encouraged by the change. Beingable to walk the streets without fear of kidnappers, the dis-appearance of hitmen on motorcycles, and the ability to en-ter any neighborhood without aggression from territorial gangshave given residents a new sense of civic pride.

They have also won high approval ratings in the city forColombia’s hard-line president, Álvaro Uribe, and Medellín’sjeans-wearing, left-of-center mayor, Sergio Fajardo.(Fajardo’s approval rating reached 90 percent in a recentpoll by Semana, Colombia’s most-circulated newsweekly.)

Nonetheless, those interviewed – Mayor Fajardo and mem-bers of his government, human-rights defenders, local jour-nalists, businesspeople, demobilized paramilitaries – wereless in agreement about why Medellín has become so safe insuch a short time.

Many credited President Uribe’s tough security policies,which have brought a greater police and military presence inthe vast, lawless slums that surround the city. Many said thatMedellín is more peaceful because “the paramilitaries won”– the right-wing groups ejected guerrilla-tied gangs from theslums, dominate criminal activity in the city, and are pres-

ently on their best behavior as a controversial demobiliza-tion process proceeds. Many also praised Medellín’s citygovernment, which has invested in projects in poor neigh-borhoods and in programs to reintegrate former paramili-tary fighters and gang members.

As far as we could tell, all of the above hypotheses are cor-rect. Uribe’s “Democratic Security” strategy, theparamilitaries’ uncontested dominion, and the mayor’s office’sprograms combine in several ways – some encouraging,some sinister – to explain Medellín’s “renaissance.”

1. Democratic Security. The Uribe government is the firstto have really sought to establish a government presence –even if a largely military-police presence – in the poor bar-rios that ring Medellín. That presence simply didn’t existbefore.

Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, new arrivals to Medellín –many of them displaced by violence elsewhere – built theirhomes on the steep mountainsides that overlook the rapidlygrowing city to the east and west. What started out as squat-ter settlements of makeshift shacks grew – often with thehelp of guerrilla groups – into labyrinthine warrens of hand-made brick homes, steep stairways and pirated water and

Medellín, with about 2.1 million people, is Colombia’ssecond-largest city.

12 electricity. As rural poverty and conflict-relatedviolence pushed ever more migrants to Medellín,these neighborhoods kept growing, and todaytheir residents make up at least half of the city’spopulation of about 2.1 million.

It is hard to explain to a non-Colombian audi-ence that even though these neighborhoods areeasily visible from just about everywhere in down-town Medellín, they were, until very recently, justas completely ungoverned as far-flung, isolatedjungle zones like Putumayo. As recently as 2002-2003, police and soldiers dared not enter themexcept in very large numbers, while most othercentral and municipal government agencies stayedaway.

Residents grew accustomed to living under thecontrol of street gangs made up largely of youngpeople. Some were involved in organized crime,particularly Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug car-tel, and others (known as combos) were mainlyterritorial. In the absence of police, gangs carriedout brutal “social cleansing” campaigns, ejectingor killing petty criminals, prostitutes, street chil-dren, drug addicts and other non-conformist ele-ments.

During the 1990s, especially as the effort to takedown Pablo Escobar loosened the drug lords’grip, the gang structure was taken over by guer-rilla militias, the urban appendages of Colombia’sFARC and ELN insurgencies. Both guerrillagroups, founded in the mid-1960s, control muchterritory in rural areas, but have generally had dif-ficulty establishing a toehold in cities.

They managed to establish an operational pres-ence in many urban areas by establishing gangs –or taking over existing ones – made up largely ofunemployed young people, including many mi-nors. The milicias urbanas freely roamed thecity’s slums, carrying arms, wearing ski masksover their faces, spray-painting political slogansand forcing residents to attend political indoctri-nation meetings. They also carried out “socialcleansing,” and facilitated rural guerrillas’ supplyand transit in and out of the city.

A source named “Marco Aurelio” described lifeunder the guerrilla militias in a 2005 book by Co-lombian journalist Ricardo Aricapa:

Views of the Comuna 12 and 13 districts on Medellín’s western edge,built on steep hills overlooking downtown.

13Was there more security in theneighborhood? Yes, undeniably.There were no more robberies ofshops, assaults on buses or bur-glaries of homes. You could be outuntil two or three in the morning,even wake up in the street, andnothing happened to you. Theypatrolled, asked things, and evengot involved in resolving conflictsbetween neighbors. …

[T]he kids saw that being amiliciano had its advantages. Itwas like moving up in the world.And put yourself in the kids’place: from very poor families,without education because theydidn’t even have bus fare to go tohigh school, and without possi-bilities for employment, becausethey were minors. Instead, the situ-ation was different for them asmilicianos. They carried weaponsand this made them feel powerful,they had money to buy clothesand sneakers. And they got to go with the prettiest girls inthe neighborhood. …

But the worst, I think, the real reason why things went asfar as they did, was that the government did nothing. Theytook no notice of the things that were happening in thisneighborhood. A policeman wouldn’t dare show up here,not even if he was lost. They tried to install a CAI (a smallpolice post) near the entrance to the neighborhood, butthe milicianos dynamited it. And they didn’t try to rebuildit. They decided it would be better to leave these neighbor-hoods completely without security forces.

Starting around 2000, the United Self-Defense Forces ofColombia – the AUC, Colombia’s feared network of right-wing paramilitary groups – began to challenge the militias’domination of Medellín’s slums. The paramilitaries’ MetroBloc, under the command of Rodrigo Franco, who calledhimself “Rodrigo 00,” and Cacique Nutibara Bloc (BCN),under the command of longtime drug-underworld figure Di-ego Fernando Murillo or “Don Berna,” steadily increasedtheir presence in the lawless barrios.

Unlike their rural counterparts, the urban paramilitaries rarelymarched through the streets wearing camouflage uniformsand carrying heavy weapons. Like the guerrilla militias, theywere difficult to distinguish from the gangs that had long domi-nated the slums – and in fact took over much of the existinggang structure.

The paramilitaries and militias waged ever more intensefirefights in the neighborhoods’ streets. “Balaceras,” orshootouts, erupted frequently, as the neighborhood’s resi-

dents huddled in the parts of their flimsyhouses least likely to be reached bystray bullets. Dozens were caught inthe crossfire, and hundreds more wereexecuted on suspicion of collaborat-ing with the other side. The city’s mur-der rate soared to nearly 200 per100,000, a level not seen since the fi-nal years of Pablo Escobar’s MedellínCartel in the early 1990s.

Wealthy with drug money and unchal-lenged by the security forces,Medellín’s paramilitaries gained groundquickly. By mid-2002 they had ejectedmilitias and taken over gangs in manyneighborhoods. The guerrilla militias,however, continued to maintain strong-holds in several slums, especially thosein Comuna (Ward) 13 on the city’swestern fringe.

In May 2002, just as Colombians were about to hand ÁlvaroUribe a first-round presidential election victory, the Colom-bian government made its first real foray into Comuna 13, aone-day military offensive called Operation Mariscal. A dayof house-to-house urban warfare killed about a dozen civil-ians. The operation failed to dislodge the militias, who a fewdays later were able to turn back an attempt by Medellín’smayor to visit the neighborhood.

Álvaro Uribe was in office for just over two months, in Oc-tober 2002, when thousands of Colombia’s military, policeand judicial police launched Operation Orión in Comuna13. The offensive, an intense campaign of house-to-housefighting, went on for weeks and emptied the neighborhoodof most of its residents. This time, the civilian death toll waslower, but over 400 people were arrested, most of themlater released for lack of evidence. After Operation Oriónand a few other efforts elsewhere in 2003, the guerrilla mili-tias were gone from Medellín’s neighborhoods.

At the same time, the soldiers and police who enteredComuna 13 and other neighborhoods stayed there. The Uribegovernment built police posts and increased the number ofsoldiers and officers assigned to Medellín. To date, therehave been relatively few complaints about the police’s treat-ment of the population; responses to crime events have beengenerally rapid, and cases of abuse or corruption have beeninfrequent – though still rarely punished when they happen.

Location of Comuna 13.(Map source: CINEP, Banco de Datos deDerechos Humanos y Violencia Política)

14(This is not the case with the 4th Brigade, the ColombianArmy unit responsible for Medellín and much of surroundingAntioquia department. The brigade stands accused of killingdozens of civilians during the past two years, dressing theirbodies in camouflage and presenting them as guerrillas killedin combat. Nearly all of these cases, though, have occurredin rural areas beyond Medellín.)

There is now at least somegovernment presence in allof Medellín’s neighbor-hoods. This has allowedMedellín to participate ina nationwide downturn inviolence that accompaniedPresident Uribe’s deploy-ment of soldiers and po-lice to population centersand main roads throughout the country.

2. The paramilitaries won. In many neighborhoods, how-ever, state presence has not become state control. Theparamilitaries were not ejected by Operation Orión and othermilitary efforts; by some accounts they even assisted in theassault. They appear, in fact, to have emerged stronger astheir principal enemies were pushed out of the city.

“Operation Orión was the beginning of the installation of anew power in Comuna 13, the same one that had ruled overother comunas in the city: that of the paramilitaries,” wroteRicardo Aricapa, the author of the above-cited 2005 book,in a recent UN DevelopmentProgram newsletter.

Following the guerrilla militias’expulsion, a period of fightingensued throughout the city be-tween the paramilitaries’Metro Bloc and CaciqueNutibara Bloc; by the end of2003, Don Berna’s BCN hadwon exclusive control. TheBCN killed Metro Bloc leader “Rodrigo 00,” a critic of theparamilitaries’ narco activity who corresponded frequentlywith U.S. reporters, in eastern Antioquia in May 2004.

“Those who know the issue are certain that more than three-quarters of Medellín’s poor neighborhoods today are underDon Berna’s control,” Semana reported in 2003. “It seemsincredible to all that the police who patrol the zone are theonly ones who appear not to notice what happens before

everyone’s eyes.”

In December 2002, the AUC paramilitaries agreed to sitdown with the Uribe government to negotiate the terms oftheir disarmament, a process that today is nearly – thoughnot entirely – complete. This process had gone almost no-where in November 2003, when Don Berna unexpectedlyannounced the demobilization of his Cacique Nutibara Bloc.

In a highly staged and highly questioned ceremony, 868 pur-ported members of theBCN turned in less thanhalf as many weapons. Itwould be the first of a longseries of paramilitary de-mobilization ceremoniesthroughout Colombia overthe next two and a halfyears.

Don Berna’s men – some of them officially demobilized, someapparently not – are still a powerful force in Medellín today.They continue to control nearly all gang activity in Medellín’sslums. Killings of opponents continue, though at a much lowerlevel; use of knives or other instruments, instead of guns, isincreasingly common. Young men in plainclothes can still beseen keeping quiet watch over many barrios, though theyno longer install roadblocks or bar outsiders from entering.

“A worrying situation of illegal control is observed in the city,in territories that used to be under the open domination ofparamilitary groups,” reported the Medellín city government’sombudsman (personería) earlier this year.

What has changed now is that thiscontrol is exercised in a differentway, without massacres or a highnumber of murders, though au-thoritarian and violent social con-trol practices are maintained. ... Inmany of the investigated zones, itwas found that groups of demobi-lized persons are dedicated to sup-posed safeguarding of citizen se-curity, which should not happenin a city where the state should be

sovereign. It is worrying that in some sectors, this controlis happening in the full but passive view of the autorities -or worse, with their open collaboration.

Don Berna’s near-monopoly on criminal control of Medellín’sneighborhoods is a major reason for the downturn in vio-lence. Relative peace often results when a territory finds it-self under a single group’s uncontested dominion. The civil-

Continued on page 16

Diego Fernando Murillo or “Don Berna.”

15

The “Casa de Paz:” Beginning of a New Peace Process?While in Medellín, CIP had an opportunity to visit the “Casade Paz,” a large old estate on Medellín’s northern outskirts,set way back from the highway. At the gates, a smiling po-liceman tried a few English words as he took down our in-formation in a notebook.

Police surround the compound’s perimeter, partly to pro-vide security and partly to keep its occupant from escaping.

The sole resident of the Casa de Paz is Francisco Galán, aleader of the ELN guerrilla group whom the governmentcaptured in the mid-1990s. Galán is very unlikely to attemptan escape: from his previous jail cell in Itagüí, south ofMedellín, and elsewhere, he has long served as the mainconduit between the ELN and the outside world – includingthe Colombian government.

Galán has played a central role as the Uribe government andthe ELN have slowly moved closer todialogue. His position is a difficult one.On one side, he must deal with a gov-ernment that would like to conclude apeace agreement as soon as possible.On the other is the ELN, “in the moun-tains,” whose members not only lacka detailed agenda for talks, but haveachieved only a bare consensus aboutwhether the talks are desirable.

The ELN, much more than the FARC,has sought contact with, and even participation of, Colombia’s“civil society” in the elaboration of an agenda for talks. Sevennon-governmental leaders are helping by serving as the “guar-antors” of the house where Galán is today.

Since September 2005, the “Casa” has served as a spacefor Galán to receive outside visitors, and thus to help theELN develop proposals for future peace talks. It has amplemeeting spaces, well-tended gardens and a panoramic viewof Medellín. Its upkeep is funded by the Colombian govern-ment and by the three international “friends” of the ELNprocess, Spain, Norway and Switzerland. Two thousandvisitors and ten international delegations have passed through.

The “Casa” is an innovative example of a confidence-buidingmeasure: while what goes on there cannot be considered“negotiations,” it can create conditions for eventual peacenegotiations. It reflects a belief that contact between armedgroups and the rest of Colombian (and international) societyshould be fostered (though regulated of course) – not banned.

To keep groups hermetically sealed, isolated in the jungle, isto make them more out of touch with contemporary reali-ties, more paranoid, and more extremist. Instead, it makessense to have a space where members have to answer tocritics, consider other viewpoints, listen to their past victims,and learn about their country’s current political reality. Thisis a very de-radicalizing experience. In our view, even in theabsence of peace talks, the FARC should also be given theopportunity to have a “Casa.”

The FARC are no doubt watching the ELN’s process closely.This process, said Galán, was “on standby” – not an acri-monious impasse or freeze, but a slowdown of the dialogues’pace. “Exploratory” talks occurred in Cuba late last yearand early this year, and have begun again as this report goesto press in mid-October. While these have been helpful ex-changes of views, many observers hope that formal negotia-

tions - with a cease-fire in place - maybegin soon. Colombia’s January-Mayelection campaign slowed things down,as has the ELN’s decision-makingmodel, which seeks the maximum pos-sible consensus among fighters andcommanders of all ranks.

The government, of course, wants acease-fire – including a halt tokidnappings and a release of thosewhom the ELN is cruelly holding for

ransom – as a pre-condition for substantive dialogues. Be-fore entering into a cease-fire, Galán said, the ELN wouldfirst prefer to have more agreement on the talks’ agenda,and a “humanitarian accord” guaranteeing more support tothe conflict’s victims, especially displaced people. Anotherstumbling block in the way of a cease-fire is money: the ELN,which gets little or no funding from the drug trade, wouldneed to support itself. President Uribe has indicated that hewould seek money from donor nations to sustain the ELNduring a cease-fire.

For now, though – and probably for some time to come –the talks are in a trust-building phase, as both sides developrelationships and measure each other’s will and ability todeliver on promises and commitments. This is one of themost difficult and delicate phases, in which progress is hardto measure and patience is badly needed as both sides testeach other and try to convince their constituencies that theprocess is worth pursuing.

From www.casadpaz.org.

16ian population, tired of beingcaught in the crossfire, wel-comes the change in its secu-rity, even if it is not quite theresult of government control.It is a relief to have to pay ex-tortion money to only onegroup, or to be free of threat-ened retribution for helping the“other side” – because thereis no other side. Notes the cityombudsman:

It is worth mentioningthat while these actionsare carried out with agreat deal of intimidation, in more than a few places manypeople accept this activity of dominance as a legitimateand necessary project, or as a reality before which nothingcan be done, because ultimately the groups in control “wonthe war” and are the victors. This contributes to the favor-able conditions that demobilized leaders have enjoyed.

By several accounts, Don Berna has helped bring down vio-lent crime rates by ordering his followers to desist from com-mitting large-scale murder, displacement, and other harass-ment of the civilian population. The feared paramilitary leaderis currently in the Itagüí prison south of Medellín, accused ofordering the killing of a state legislator last year. Nonethe-less, he continues to maintain a strong “pyramidal structure”of control over the Cacique Nutibara Bloc “muchachos,”according to leaders CIP interviewed at the office ofCorporación Democracia, a non-governmental organiza-tion founded by ex-BCN paramilitary leaders. In 2005, can-didates supported by Corporación Democracia made astrong showing in elections to Community Action Boards(Juntas de Acción Comunal), a government-sanctioned net-work of neighborhood advisory bodies.

The former BCN leaders professed their continued loyaltyto their “maximum leader, Adolfo Paz” (Don Berna’s pre-ferred nom de guerre), crediting him with having “humanizedthe war” and brought an end to the violence. “Adolfo Paz isthe pacifier of Medellín,” they assured us.

While acknowledging that Don Berna’s order to behave hasbeen a factor, Medellín city government officials insist that itis not the main factor. They recall that violence indicatorshave declined in much of the country, including many areasoutside of Don Berna’s influence. “Don Berna does not con-trol Medellín. He only controls criminality in Medellín,” saidthe city’s secretary of government, Alonso Salazar.

That is probably quite accu-rate. And Don Berna’s con-solidation of that control is anundeniable factor in Medellín’srecent decline in criminality.

This decline is far from abso-lute, however. By many ac-counts, the security situationhas ceased improving, andnew violent groups may bemaking an appearance. “FearContinues in Comuna 13,”read a headline in the Septem-ber 4 edition of ElColombiano, Medellín’smost-circulated daily. “Com-

mon criminals, guerrilla militias that want to re-take power,or demobilized paramilitaries who are up to no good? Who-ever is behind the changed atmosphere in Comuna 13, resi-dents of this sector of western Medellín are experiencingfear and dread almost equal to that of four years ago.” Thearticle cites the August 23 murder of Haider Ramírez, a neigh-borhood activist and organizer, adding that several otherneighborhood leaders had received threatening flyers. A po-lice commander said that at least fifteen criminal gangs stilloperate in the district. This is occurring despite the presenceof about 500 police and soldiers assigned to Comuna 13.

This emerging situation is rather confusing, and for now, lo-cal activists are afraid to discuss it. “The leaders have madea decision not to talk with anyone but the authorities aboutthe zone’s problems,” El Colombiano reported. “‘We don’tknow who we’re talking to at any given moment, and any-thing we say can put us at risk. We don’t know whom totrust,’ some said.”

3. Medellín’s city government is investing in peace.The Uribe government oversaw an increase in the securityforces’ presence and activities in Medellín and elsewhere inColombia. A common critique, however, is that it has donefar less nationwide to cement security gains with investmentsin infrastructure, education, health, and other basic needs.

In Medellín, which has more resources than most munici-palities, the local government has picked up much of theslack. It has accompanied the introduction of a police pres-ence with investment in a “community policing” model fo-cusing on improved response times, building community mem-bers’ trust, and a less adversarial approach.

The mayor’s office has launched numerous infrastructureprojects in the poor hillside barrios, building transportation,

Rendering of a library under construction at the entranceto Comuna 13 in San Javier.

17parks, libraries, museums and schools. In many cases, thesebuildings are not being constructed on the cheap: designedby architects, they stand out sharply from the ragged hol-low-brick houses that surround them. The “Metrocable,” asystem of overhead trams, now transports residents of north-eastern Medellín’s barrios up the steep hillside; another isplanned for the western neighborhoods. Taking a page fromformer Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus, Mayor SergioFajardo hopes that quality facilities, along with efforts to in-spire a culture of citizenship, will encourage community mem-bers to take a more active role in maintaining tranquility andprosperity.

Where is the money coming from? Fajardo says that “taxcollection in Medellín has increased by 20 percent since myadministration began.” He told CIP that he has broadenedthe tax base, convincing the business community and othersto pay more through transparent management of the city’sfinances. “Nobody is going to call me ‘Sergio 15,’ someonewho takes a 15 percent cut from every contract,” he said.“We aren’t stealing ... way too much money was stolen inthe past.”

Medellín needs a particularly full treasury because it has be-come a principal haven for former paramilitaries from through-out Colombia. Over 4,000 of the 31,000 who took part incollective demobilizations since 2003 now live in the city.The city government has spent much of its own money –about 23 billion pesos (US$10 million) so far – on attentionto the demobilized population.

When the Cacique Nutibara Bloc demobilized in Novem-ber 2003, many saw it asa joke. 868 young menlined up before the cam-eras to turn in a smallernumber of weapons. Noagreement with theparamilitaries existed, andno law was in place fordealing with them. Manyof those who demobilized,it was widely alleged, hadno paramilitary past – theywere gang members orcommon criminals whohad been rounded up inthe days or weeks beforethe ceremony. After acouple of weeks in an ori-entation center outside

Medellín, those young men who did not have outstandingarrest warrants were returned to their own neighborhoodswith vague promises of subsidies, education and job oppor-tunities. Nothing was foreseen for their victims.

Colombia’s national government distanced itself from theBCN demobilization; Peace Commissioner Luis CarlosRestrepo even called it an “embarrassment.” The central gov-ernment did not even offer a monthly stipend to the 868 ex-paramiliaries, though participants in all subsequent demobi-lizations are getting 400,000 pesos (about US$170) permonth for twenty-four months.

The Medellín city government made the best of it. Guidedby Secretary of Government Alonso Salazar, an expert inMedellín’s urban violence, the mayor’s office chose not todistinguish between “real” paramilitaries and gang members.There is simply too much overlap between the two, theyargued, and the city government did not want to miss anopportunity to get troubled youth off the street and into thesystem. (Salazar, who will seek to succeed Fajardo as mayorin October 2007 elections, resigned from his post in lateAugust.)

The designers of the city’s reintegration programs have clearlystudied lessons learned from past experiences elsewhere. Inaddition to subsidies, former fighters are getting educationand job training far beyond what the central government of-fers. “We found that, in most cases, a few months of educa-tion was not enough for them to get a real job,” said JorgeGaviria, who works on the city’s reintegration effort. “They

didn’t speak well orpresent themselves right.They just weren’t ready.”

The city invested in psy-chological attention to theformer fighters, includingworkshops in socializationand relationships with theircommunities. In somecases, this has includedefforts at reconciliationwith victims, including ask-ing for forgiveness. Vic-tims are also receiving amodest amount of atten-tion, as the city govern-ment has recentlylaunched a series of pro-grams to provide psycho-

Since the BCN demobilization in 2003, Colombia has seen 37collective demobilizations of paramilitary blocs, like this one in

Putumayo in March. But Colombia’s central government lacks awell-resourced, institutionally sound strategy for assisting either

former fighters or their victims. Medellín’s city government is one offew that have sought to fill the resulting vacuum.

18logical attention, offer employment assistance and “recovermemory.”

We found a divergence of opinion about whether the formerrank-and-file combatants have truly abandonedparamilitarism. Most appear to be taking advantage of theopportunities presented to them by the Medellín government’sreintegration programs. At the same time, many of the youngmen (and a handful of women) receiving this assistance arestill “muchachos” within the structure of the CorporaciónDemocracia. When asked whether they remain loyal to DonBerna, their former commander, a group of ex-paramilitariesinterviewed by CIP, visibly uncomfortable, preferred not toanswer the question.

Those who were footsoldiers in the old paramilitary blocs,as well as those whose participation more closely resembledgang activity, are likely to drop their old allegiances if theiremployment prospects and living standards improve. Lessclear is what will become of their immediate commanders –the mid-level and higher-ranking figures who still openly pro-fess loyalty to Don Berna and other maximum leaders. Havethese commanders truly left their old ways behind? Have thenetworks that sustained them been broken? We found noconsensus of opinion on that point – and in fact heard muchpessimism. Clearly, someone is still doing Don Berna’s bid-ding in the comunas, running criminal activity and recruitingfrom a large pool of unemployed youth, even if they aredoing so with less violence than before.

Can it last? Medellín’s gains are remarkable. But they maybe fragile and easily reversible. In the absence of a coherentcentral government reintegration strategy and a credible sys-tem for punishing abuse and corruption, recent gains de-pend too heavily on the policies of a mayor whose termends soon, and the goodwill of a feared criminal group.

Until the Bogotá government and foreign donors invest farmore in non-military needs and institutional strengthening, atleast four key factors put Medellín’s recovery at risk.

1. The current gains are threatened by an incompletetransition from paramilitary domination to state con-trol. This transition is moving ahead slowly, if at all.Though there is now a government presence in Medellín’sbarrios, the police alone do not appear to be enough. At aJuly 24 security meeting, Mayor Fajardo repeated a long-time request that President Uribe send another 2,000 policeto the city. (In October, President Uribe made an appear-ance in Comuna 13 to announce the arrival of 500 new po-lice.)

The full amount is unlikely to be forthcoming. Even if it were,Colombia has not managed to reduce the near-total impu-nity enjoyed by those in the security forces who abuse hu-man rights or work with paramilitaries. Such crimes occa-sionally result in firings but almost never in convictions. If notpunished when they happen, abuse and collaboration withpro-government criminals are likely to remain common, andeven to increase along with the security forces’ presence.

Even today, not enough is being done to keep the ex-paramilitaries from playing a de facto security role in manyneighborhoods. This is both unacceptable and unsustainable.

2. Don Berna could be extradited. At any time, the DEAmight discover new evidence that the “Pacifier of Medellín”is still conspiring to send drugs to the United States, in viola-tion of the Colombian law offering leniency to demobilizedparamilitaries. This would bring renewed U.S. pressure toextradite him, which Colombia’s government might find im-possible to resist. Should Don Berna be put on a plane toMiami, his muchachos could revolt and re-arm, plungingthe city into violence. Even if that outbreak of violence provesto be shortlived, the absence of a “maximum leader,” com-bined with the absence of a sufficient state presence, couldtouch off a renewed power struggle for control of Medellín’sorganized crime and gang activity. Neighborhoods could onceagain become contested territory, and crime rates would rise.

3. A future Medellín government might not place thesame value on reintegration, attention to victims, andprojects in poor neighborhoods. Mayor Fajardo’s termends at the end of next year. Mayors are not allowed to runfor re-election in Colombia, and there is always a chancethat Alonso Salazar, his likely successor, might not win (nei-ther Fajardo nor Salazar, for example, is considered to be apolitical backer of President Uribe, who is quite popular inMedellín). Continuity of the city government’s current pro-grams, then, is never assured. However, even a civic-mindedgovernment could see its costly programs threatened by ei-ther an economic downturn or by the arrival of still moredemobilized paramilitaries. Attracted by its generous reinte-gration efforts, which contrast sharply with what is availableelsewhere, ex-paramilitaries are believed to be pouring intothe city; the Corporación Democracia estimates that theirnumbers could grow from the current 4,000 to as much as10,000 by the end of 2007. If that happens, the currentsystem will not be able to deal with demand for its services.

4. The national government’s lack of planning couldcontribute to the reintegration effort’s collapse – thoughthis is an even greater risk outside Medellín. Disturb-ingly, everyone we interviewed in Medellín – from the local

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AcknowledgementsThis report is the result of a research visit to Medellín, Bogotá andPutumayo by CIP Colombia Program Director Adam Isacson, duringthe last nine days of July 2006. On this trip and afterward in Wash-ington, Mr. Isacson conducted about thirty-five interviews withgovernment representatives (U.S. and Colombian, central and local,military and civilian), non-governmental organizations, scholars,former combatants, indigenous and campesino leaders, church andbusiness-sector representatives, and journalists.

A trip like this one - and the resulting report - would be impossiblewithout help from many Colombians who work tirelessly, and atsome personal risk, to make their country more just and their leadersmore accountable. Their accompaniment, assistance, contacts andadvice, offered with no expectation of payment, make it possible forCIP to have access to such a broad range of opinion and geography.Though security concerns make it unwise to identify those whohave aided us, they know who they are - and CIP wants them toknow how thankful we are and how much we admire them and thework that they do.

Finally, CIP thanks the General Service Foundation, the ComptonFoundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, and all of our individualcontributors for generously supporting our work on Colombia, in-cluding this report. Much is happening on the receiving end of thelargest U.S. military aid program outside the Middle East. We thankthem for helping us to dig deeply and uncover the truth about it.

Clockwise from top left: the au-thor with Medellín Mayor SergioFajardo; with Medellín Secretaryof Government Alonso Salazar;meeting with demobilizedparamilitaries in Medellín;speaking at a forum inColombia’s Congress inBogotá; and driving throughPutumayo’s countryside.

government to the ex-paramilitaries to non-governmental hu-man rights advocates – was frustrated with the Bogotágovernment’s handling of the paramilitary reintegration pro-cess. Every single interviewee mentioned the lack of a na-tional strategy for dealing with the former fighters (most usedthat exact phrase). The words “improvisation” and “neglect”were frequently invoked to describe the central government’sapproach to the challenge of helping more than 30,000 formercombatants become citizens and participants in the legaleconomy. Bogotá has done little more than provide stipendsand vocational training, leaving Medellín to fill in a lot ofblanks.

The problem is far more serious beyond Medellín, wheremunicipalities hosting former combatants are poorer, weak-ened by corruption, or simply unwilling to spend scarce re-sources on reintegration. They are even less able to adjudi-cate cases of stolen property or reparations to the conflict’shundreds of thousands of victims. In these cases, the lack ofa more coherent central government strategy may bring di-saster. Beset by a flood of unemployed young men with fewmarketable skills, other than killing, dozens of cash-strappedcities and towns throughout Colombia will have little hope ofemulating Medellín’s recent, but fragile, successes.

Some sources consulted:International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports, U.S. Department of State:Information about coca cultivation and eradication. (www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/)

Coca Surveys, UN Office on Drugs and Crime: Information about coca anderadication by department, and alternative development. (www.unodc.org/unodc/crop_monitoring.html)

“Putumayo Mientras Llueve,” by Efrén Piña of CINEP in the October 23-November 7 edition of Actualidad Colombiana.(www.actualidadcolombiana.org/boletin.shtml?x=1755)

Comuna 13: Crónica de una Guerra Urbana, by journalist Ricardo Aricapa(Medellín: Universidad de Antioquia, 2005): 29-31. Also see Aricapa’smore recent view of Comuna 13 in the July 2006 edition of a newsletterpublished by UNDP’s Colombia Office, Hechos del Callejón.( i n d h . p n u d . o r g . c o / f i l e s / b o l e t i n _ h e c h o s / B o l e t i n _ h e c h o s _del_callejon_16_opt.pdf)

Personería de Medellín, “Situación de Derechos Humanos en Medellín -2005,” in Que los Árboles Dejen Ver el Bosque, an anthology published byMedellín’s Instituto de Capacitación Popular in June 2006. (www.ipc.org.co/p a g e / i n d e x . p h p ? o p t i o n = c o m _ c o n t e n t &task=view&id=742&Itemid=349)

“El miedo sigue en la comuna 13,” by Glemis Mogollón Vergara and CarlosSalgado Roldán in the September 4, 2006 edition of Medellín’s El Colombianonewspaper. (www.elcolombiano.com.co/BancoConocimiento/E/el_miedo_sigue_en_la_comuna_13/el_miedo_sigue_en_la_comuna_13.asp)

“¿Meras coincidencias?” in the Colombian magazine Semana, July 14,2003. (www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?IdArt=71591)

Much more is available on the CIP Colombia Program website atwww.ciponline.org/colombia.

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STAFF:ROBERT E. WHITE, presidentWILLIAM GOODFELLOW, executive directorRAYMOND BAKER, senior fellowNICOLE BALL, senior fellowBARTON BEESON, Nicaragua Campaigncoord.LANDRUM BOLLING, senior fellowTRACEE BROWN, director of financeELSA CHANG, senior associateFRICK CURRY, development consultantLORENA CURRY, accountantYEIMI K. GAGLIARDI, program assistantMELVIN A. GOODMAN, director, NationalSecurity programSELIG HARRISON, director, Asia programADAM ISACSON, director of programsPAUL LUBECK, senior fellowJIM MULLINS, senior fellowABIGAIL POE, office managerWAYNE S. SMITH, senior fellowANNE SNOUCK-HURGRONJE, associateSARAH STEPHENS, consultant, FreedomTo Travel campaignINGRID VAICIUS, associateREVAZ ARDESHER, internANDRE GUZZI, internMARIAM KHOKHAR, internYERIM KIM, internVINCENT PARASCANDALO, internDANIELLE SWANK, internLOURDES VILLANUEVA, intern

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