In Colombia, a Dubious Disarmament

Tovar's hit men killed 558 people in one coastal province, Atlantico, at the same time he was participating in disarmament negotiations, according to the report. The victims included shopkeepers who failed to deliver extortion payments, leftist activists, common criminals and even a university professor. The report says that "men, women, children and passersby from all social and professional levels have become victimized."

Tovar kept detailed records of cocaine shipments to the United States and Europe, the Attorney General's Office said. The office's report also recounted how rogue police units took payoffs to permit cocaine deliveries and how Tovar helped senators and congressmen close to him win reelection.

In this city in a key region of the mighty Magdalena River, paramilitary fighters entered with fury in 2000, rooting out guerrillas and killing their supporters. Caught in the crossfire were villagers and the residents of Barrancabermeja, where lush neighborhoods filled with fruit trees and tropical birds sprawl over the hillsides.

In a massacre here in 1998, paramilitaries kidnapped 32 people at gunpoint. Twenty-five disappeared, and seven were later found dead. Peña still chokes up as he recalls how he looked out his window to see two gunmen abducting his son.

A neighbor, Luz Almanza, tears up as she recounts how her husband, Ricky Nelson García, was also led away for good that night. Luz Marina López, a shop owner, can barely keep her composure when she tells how her 20-year-old twins, a son and a daughter, were killed in the same incident.

All that the victims' relatives ever learned was that the paramilitaries suspected the neighborhood of close ties to the guerrillas.

"What I want from the state is to know what happened to these people," Almanza said. "What we want is for them to tell us the truth."

Under the government's Justice and Peace Law, approved by Congress last year, generous benefits were granted to commanders accused of atrocities in exchange for disarming units of fighters. The government also announced that those who participated in the process would not be extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges -- the paramilitary commanders' greatest fear.

In the face of international outrage, Colombia's highest court struck down some provisions in May and made the terms more stringent. Most of the commanders, including Tovar, also turned themselves in and are now housed in a spacious facility in Antioquia province.

Under the revised law, commanders must pay reparations to victims out of both their legal and ill-gotten gains. And they must confess to their crimes -- losing benefits if prosecutors later determine that they lied or omitted information.

"What we want is that there be a recognition of the victims' right to truth, to justice and reparation," said Eduardo Pizarro, who heads the government's reparations commission. "And to guarantee that it won't happen again."

Still, the law shields the commanders from serving time in prison, and they remain protected from extradition.