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September 30, 2002 Reinventing Carlos Castaño The U.S. Justice Department timed its request for the arrest and extradition of Colombian paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño on drug trafficking charges to coincide with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's arrival in Washington. Undoubtedly, the White House wanted to use the issuing of the extradition request and the "anti-terrorism" pow-wow between President Bush and Uribe as evidence that Washington and Bogotá are combating right-wing paramilitaries as well as leftist guerrillas in Colombia. But while this charade was clearly a public relations ploy, what's not so obvious is the reasoning behind Castaño's announcement that he is willing to cooperate with the extradition request and face justice in the United States. One possible explanation is that the Bush administration has entered into some kind of Faustian deal with Colombia's notorious death squad leader.
AUC fighters routinely induced fear in the rural population by entering villages and rounding up the residents in the town plaza. They would then brutally kill a handful of villagers, often dismembering them with machetes and chainsaws, before ordering the rest of the people to leave the region. By forcibly displacing the rural population in this manner, the paramilitaries hoped to eliminate local support for the guerrillas. This strategy has aggravated the already grossly inequitable distribution of arable lands as large landowners, as well as multinational corporations interested in oil, coal and natural gas resources, have taken over much of the abandoned land. More than 2.5 million rural Colombians have been displaced by the conflict in the past 15 years, many of them fleeing to the impoverished shantytowns that are rapidly encircling many of Colombia's cities. In recent years, however, Castaño has become increasingly conscious of his organization's public image. The normally reclusive militia chief has recently given several interviews to U.S. and Colombian journalists. And in an attempt to gain political legitimacy, the paramilitaries have begun implementing a strategy of selectively assassinating one or two victims at a time over a prolonged period instead of perpetrating a single large massacre. Because a massacre is defined as three or more people killed at the same time, in the same place, for the same reason, this tactic allows a smaller percentage of Colombia's massacres to be attributed to the right-wing death squads. It has also resulted in fewer negative news stories by media organizations that often only deem mass killings to be newsworthy. In an attempt to cleanse his personal image, Castaño resigned from his position as the AUC's military commander in June 2001 in order to distance himself from the atrocities regularly committed by his fighters. He retained his position as political head of the organization until one year later when, in another apparent public relations ploy, Castaño announced he was dissolving the AUC because of the inability of the national command to control the drug trafficking activities and kidnappings committed by regional paramilitary groups. Meanwhile, he has continued as commander of Colombia's largest regional paramilitary force, the ACCU. It is obvious that the limiting of massacres, Castaño's resignation as the AUC's military chief, and the disbanding of the AUC are all steps in an ongoing process intended to legitimize the paramilitary leader. But there are still two more obstacles to overcome before Castaño can complete the reinvention of himself. One concerns the 27 warrants for his arrest that have been issued by Colombian authorities. The other involves human rights groups and a handful of representatives in the U.S. Congress concerned about the atrocities committed by the paramilitaries. The sudden rise to power of President Uribe promises to take care of the first obstacle. The process of politically legitimizing the paramilitaries was initiated last week when Colombia's Interior Minister Fernando Londoño introduced a proposal into the Colombian Congress calling for the modification of an existing law that will allow the government to conduct future peace talks with illegal armed groups without giving them political status. If approved, this would allow the Uribe administration to sidestep any objections from human rights groups and civic organizations regarding the conferring of political status upon the right-wing death squads. In all likelihood, any such negotiations would lead to the issuing of an amnesty to all paramilitaries willing to lay down their arms. Uribe could then fulfill his campaign promise to strengthen the armed forces by immediately recruiting these experienced fighters into the Colombian army, which would allow the former paramilitaries to continue their dirty war against suspected subversives. While Uribe might get away with issuing an amnesty to rank and file paramilitary fighters under the guise of disarming one of the country's illegal armed groups, it is unlikely that international human rights groups and the U.S. Congress would tolerate Castaño being afforded such impunity. Which brings us to last week's extradition request and Castaño's willingness to turn himself over to U.S. authorities. In the past, the militia chief has made overtures to U.S. law enforcement agencies regarding his willingness to cooperate in the apprehension of Colombian drug traffickers. Consequently, it is not inconceivable that somewhere along the line the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) may have reached a deal with Castaño that would allow him to turn state's evidence. In return for handing the DEA a treasure trove of information about Colombian drug trafficking, the death squad leader would be offered total impunity or an insignificant amount of jail time. Such a deal would be a win-win situation for everyone involved except the Colombian people. Castaño will face "justice" in the United States and might even be considered a hero in the war against drugs. After appeasing Washington, he could then take advantage of an amnesty offered by the Uribe administration. Ultimately, a newly legitimized Castaño would be free to enter Colombia's political arena. For its part, the DEA would be able to gloat about what could conceivably be the largest drug trafficking coup ever, albeit, most likely only consisting of drug traffickers affiliated with renegade paramilitary factions not closely-allied to Castaño. And Uribe would be able to point to the dismantling of the paramilitaries as a step toward peace and proof that the guerrillas are responsible for the country's violence. In the meantime, rural Colombians will continue to be victimized by a dirty war that will have been legitimized. Could the Bush administration possibly have entered into such a Faustian deal with Castaño? History says yes. After all, it is no more far-fetched an idea than the Kennedy administration arming and training a group of Cuban exiles to try and overthrow the Castro government. Nor is it any more inconceivable than the Reagan administration secretly and illegally selling arms to Iran in order to covertly fund CIA-trained counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua in direct violation of U.S. law. Nor is it any more absurd than Bush Sr. invading Panama and killing some 4,000 civilians in order to apprehend one alleged drug trafficker. And if the current Bush administration can get away with launching a war against terrorism by befriending a military dictatorship in Pakistan that supports Kashmiri terrorists, then who's to say the White House can't help legitimize Colombia's most notorious human rights abuser. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
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Castaño,
a former army scout and associate of drug lord Pablo Escobar, took
over the reins of Colombia's largest paramilitary force, the Self-Defense
Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU), in 1994 after
his older brother Fidel disappeared. The ACCU and other regional
paramilitary groups in Colombia worked hand in glove with the U.S.-backed
Colombian military, which routinely provided them with intelligence,
weapons and transportation so they could effectively target suspected
rebel sympathizers including labor leaders, community organizers
and human rights activists. With funding from drug traffickers,
wealthy landowners, and the business community, Colombia's paramilitaries
grew dramatically during the 1990s from an estimated 850 paramilitary
fighters at the beginning of the decade to approximately 12,000
today. In 1997, Castaño oversaw the merging of the regional
paramilitary forces into one national organization, the United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia (AUC).