Paramilitary Scandal Takes Colombian Elite by Surprise

He has also said nothing of the so-called wise men, the cabal of civilian power brokers whom a former paramilitary leader, Carlos Castaño, identified as among the dark forces behind the paramilitary movement. Castaño, after writing a book detailing his role in founding the paramilitary groups, was murdered by his associates.

"The fact that they killed Carlos Castaño was because Castaño was going to talk, with Colombian and American justice," said Abad, whose father was killed by paramilitary gunmen in 1982. Abad said much of the onus is on the judiciary to ferret out how deep the paramilitary tentacles go.

"What we don't know is up to what point the paramilitaries will talk about it, and up to what point the judges, who are responsible for investigating, will be able to put together the puzzle," Abad said.

Investigating the paramilitary groups, or testifying about their operations, is still perilous. Shadowy gunmen believed to work for paramilitary commanders recently killed a handful of activists who were publicly pressing for the paramilitary groups to return stolen land and disclose their crimes. One was Yolanda Izquierdo, who had been at Mancuso's deposition.

"We confide in Colombian justice," she told The Washington Post the day Mancuso started testifying. A few weeks later, she was gunned down in front of her house.

What is different now, however, is that the paramilitary groups no longer enjoy the legitimacy they once had in some social sectors, thanks in part to the relentless news reports on abuses and the investigations by prosecutors.

"It's obviously positive that there's a housecleaning going on," said Adam Isacson, who closely tracks Colombia for the Center for International Policy, a Washington group. "It means the system is at least trying to kick into motion a little bit and starting to work."

The disclosures about Mejía and his role as commander of the army's Popa battalion in the city of Valledupar are significant, Defense Ministry officials say, because he was considered a rising star in Colombia's vast, U.S.-funded military. He had fought in some of the army's most tenacious campaigns against Marxist rebels and was assigned in 2002 to Cesar state, an important gateway for cocaine shipped to the United States.

To the surprise of veteran soldiers who could go months without killing a rebel, a 14-man team that Mejía headed always seemed to come back to the Popa base with the bodies of what the colonel claimed were dead guerrillas, according to a key witness who detailed the crimes to Semana magazine.

"As commander of the Popa battalion, what he was really doing was operating with members of this illegal group," said Cabana, referring to paramilitary death squads. "The operations that these paramilitary groups carried out were also carried out by the units he commanded."

No one seemed to suspect that Mejía, instead of going after guerrillas, was killing peasants and suspected rebel sympathizers. In one case celebrated in the press, he was said to have helped kill 19 rebels, making him something of a legend in the army. Instead, the 19 were paramilitary members whom Mejía had helped kill in a purge.

Investigators said they also later determined that Mejía was working closely with Rodrigo Tovar, known as Jorge 40, a powerful paramilitary commander in the region.

"The significant thing about him was he wasn't part of the Paleolithic, hard-core group in the military," said Isacson. "He seemed a modern officer who was a reformer. It didn't occur to people that he was having lunch with Jorge 40."