Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia

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Flag of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia

The Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia ('United Vigilante Groups of Colombia', AUC) were a Colombian umbrella organization of right-wing paramilitary groups and one of the main actors in the armed conflict in Colombia . The EU and the US had the organization on their list of terrorist organizations until 2014 .

aims

The AUC was founded in 1997 and emerged from a large number of paramilitary groups that had emerged in Colombia since the 1960s. Their official goal was to militarily defeat the guerrilla movement ( FARC , ELN ) and fill the power vacuum that exists in parts of Colombia. However, the AUC's armed struggle was also directed against the sections of the civilian population whom they described as the “social base” of the guerrilla movement. The AUC was largely funded by the cocaine trade . The partial sale of paramilitary units ("bloques") under the direction of Vicente Castaño has led in many places to deeper involvement in drug trafficking and a simultaneous decline in the counterinsurgency .

structure

The AUC were mainly active in the rural regions of northern Colombia. They were divided into several large blocks, namely the Bloque Norte (from Córdoba , Urabá via Magdalena , La Guajira to Venezuela ), the Autodefensas Campesinas del Magdalena Medio , the Bloque Centauros in the Llanos Orientales, the Bloques of Inspector General Diego Murillo Bejarano alias " Don Berna " in Antioquia , in the Valle del Cauca and on the Pacific coast, the Bloque Central Bolivar in central Colombia ( Bolivar , Santander , Eje Cafetero) and southern Colombia ( Putumayo , Nariño ). There are also several smaller bloques (for example in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta ). The AUC was long led by Carlos Castaño , who disappeared in 2003. In recent years the AUC have intensified their activities in the slums of the big cities ( Bogotá , Medellín , Cali ), where they are also recruiting new fighters. In contrast to the guerrilla groups, the AUC reward their fighters.

The membership of the AUC is estimated at 13,500 to 20,000 in 2004; it is doubtful whether it has decreased due to the demobilization process . In addition, the relationship of the AUC to parts of the Colombian military and to the legal rural vigilante groups ( convivir ) remains unclear. Systematic links between paramilitary groups and the military could be established until the mid-1990s.

Demobilization process

Shortly after taking office, Álvaro Uribe became the first Colombian president to start negotiations with the AUC. In April 2003, the paramilitary and government signed the Ralito Agreement , which obliged the paramilitaries to fully demobilize by the end of 2005 .

According to the UNHCHR, over 14,000 AUC fighters were disarmed during the demobilization process, which was officially started in 2004 and was later extended . However, a decreasing presence of the AUC in its areas of influence could not be observed. In addition, observers criticize the fact that mostly obsolete and non-functional weapons were handed in.

The co-founder and leader Carlos Castaño , who disagreed with parts of the AUC about his involvement in the drug trade, disappeared in 2003. In the media, his brother Vicente Castaño and Diego "Don Berna" Murillo Bejarano were generally associated with his disappearance on On August 23, 2006, the Colombian weekly newspaper Semana confirmed his death.

The legal basis for demobilization is the Ley de Justicia y Paz (Law on Justice and Peace), which was controversially discussed in Colombia as it provides impunity for ex-paramilitaries. Several influential drug traffickers (Diego Montoya Sanchez, Wilber "Jabon" Varela-Fajardo) then tried to portray themselves as paramilitaries in order to avoid prosecution and possible extradition to the USA . The cases of drug traffickers Francisco Javier "Gordo Lindo" Zuluaga and Miguel Ángel and Víctor "Los Mellizos" Mejía Múnera, who bought themselves into the AUC for demobilization, caused a particular stir. As the AUC is involved in the drug trade itself, or many of its leaders are also drug traffickers, it is difficult to reintegrate ex-combatants between offenses covered by the amnesty and offenses that are not distinguish. The demobilization process has also been heavily criticized at home and abroad with regard to the legal and financial claims that ex-paramilitaries can assert against their victims.

Many critics fear that the demobilization is only superficial and that the paramilitaries with mafia-like structures in the area of organized crime could continue to exist and in particular continue to exert influence on politics .

Various pieces of evidence indicate that this criticism would be justified. The AUC commander Vicente Castaño said in 2005 that the AUC controlled about a third of the Colombian Congress.

The AUC's strong influence was also evident in the 2006 parliamentary elections. After the major parties removed paramilitary ties from their lists, three parties closely related to the AUC achieved very good election results, especially in areas where the AUC was strong before the demobilization. In addition to these three parties now represented in Congress, Convergencia Ciudadana , Alas Equipo Colombia and Colombia Viva , the paramilitaries are also represented in other state institutions: in April 2006, the Colombian media exposed a scandal involving the Colombian domestic intelligence service Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS). As a result, the DAS was completely corrupted and worked very closely with various paramilitary groups (Bloque Norte, BCB, Bloque Centauros).

A report by a department of the Colombian Public Prosecutor's Office shows that 3,700 former paramilitaries who placed themselves under the protection of the Ley de Justicia y Paz special law between 2003 and 2006 confessed to a total of around 25,000 murders, which occurred over a period of around 20 Years, as well as the disappearance of 2,251 other victims and the kidnapping of 831 people. According to their information, 2100 graves with the remains of 2562 people could be found. The statements also show that police and military units commissioned massacres of the civilian population and also actively supported the AUC in the murders. From 2006 to 2018, 9,000 remains of AUC victims were found thanks to tips from former fighters; according to the public prosecutor, almost half could be handed over to the families.

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Common Position 2009/468 / CFSP of the Council of 15 June 2009 updating Common Position 2001/931 / CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism and repealing Common Position 2009/67 / CFSP
  2. ↑ Foreign Terrorist Organizations , US Department of State , as of January 27, 2012
  3. ↑ Semana Especial Paramilitarismo or Kurz / Muno 2005: 33
  4. ↑ hrw.org: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links (Summary) , accessed May 6, 2011
  5. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from March 17th, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Confirmado: Carlos Castaño está muerto, Semana of August 23, 2006 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.semana.com
  6. ↑ Wikinews (Spanish): Jefe paramilitar declara en entrevista que las AUC controlan el 35% del congreso colombiano , June 8, 2005
  7. ↑ Revista Cambio: Sigue el destape ( Memento of February 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), April 10, 2006
  8. ↑ Right-wing extremist paramilitaries confess a total of 25,000 murders. In: the standard. September 30, 2009, accessed November 1, 2009 .
  9. ↑ NZZ , May 4, 2018, page 2

literature

  • Zelik, Raul: The Colombian Paramilitaries. “Governing without a state?” Or terrorist forms of internal security. Westphalian steam boat, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-89691-766-9 .

Web links

Videos

  • Juan Lozano and Hollman Morris: Impunity , multi-award-winning documentary on the phenomenon of paramilitarism in Colombia (Spanish with English subtitles)