Paramilitary Ties to Elite In Colombia Are Detailed

Mancuso's testimony came in the midst of a difficult week for Uribe, whose administration has received $4 billion in mostly anti-drug and military aid from Washington since his election in 2002. Authorities arrested more congressional allies linked to paramilitary commanders, and then Mancuso began making his uncomfortable disclosures.

"Salvatore Mancuso spoke," the newsweekly Semana said, "and the country's political sector trembled."

Uribe remains highly popular in Colombia for lowering violence, but in Washington, Democrats on Capitol Hill are citing the recent disclosures in holding back support for a U.S. free-trade deal with Colombia.

So far, authorities have charged 14 members of Colombia's Congress, seven former lawmakers, the head of the secret police, mayors and former governors with having collaborated with paramilitary commanders. A dozen more current congressmen are under investigation. Most have been close Uribe allies who supported a constitutional amendment permitting his reelection and approved the lenient law, known as Justice and Peace, that governs the paramilitary disarmament.

Though Mancuso testified earlier this year to ordering murders and collaborating with military units, his testimony last week was much more explosive. He spoke of working closely with three former generals, all of whom have denied ties.

Mancuso's disclosures -- particularly about retired Gen. Rito Alejo del Rio, known in the state of Antioquia as the "pacifier" of the Uraba region -- are embarrassing for Uribe. Though Uribe's predecessor, Andrés Pastrana, fired del Rio for collaborating with paramilitary groups, and though the United States rescinded his visa, Uribe has publicly eulogized him as an "honorable man" and defended him in Washington.

"I support all the generals who were in Antioquia," Uribe told Caracol radio earlier this year.

Perhaps Mancuso's biggest impact came when he said that two current ministers in Uribe's government, Vice President Francisco Santos and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, met with top paramilitary commanders in the 1990s. The two men, cousins in an influential family that owns El Tiempo, Colombia's most influential newspaper, had acknowledged long ago having met with the paramilitary members. Both said they did so to further peace in Colombia, not as part of a sinister plot, as Mancuso alleged.

Mancuso's allegations have prompted some commentators to note that the commander has besmirched as many people as possible while still falling far short of accounting for all of the crimes he has committed. "The strategy behind three days of testimony that tainted people, institutions and business must be understood," said El Tiempo in a Sunday editorial. "If the whole county is responsible, then no one is responsible."

Still, Attorney General Mario Iguaran has noted that, under a new system specially designed to try the commanders, they are required to tell the truth or face losing benefits acquired under terms of the disarmament law. "We should believe him," Iguaran told El Tiempo in an interview. "That's the principle of the Justice and Peace law."

In the interview, Duque, the strategist, explained that he's writing a book, tentatively titled "Stories of Silence," in which he plans to lay out the history of paramilitarism. Once a small-town mayor and teacher, Duque spoke of how deep anti-Marxist sentiments led him to join the paramilitary groups. "I fell in love with this cause," he said.

Still, Duque called Colombia's war "dirty, slimy, anarchic, anachronistic," and said paramilitary fighters had killed countless civilians in massacres, contradicting long-held claims that those slain in the attacks were Marxist guerrillas. And he said that the paramilitary groups also murdered many union members for their "ideological posture," not for purported ties to guerrillas, as was claimed. "It was profoundly unjust," he said.

But Duque, like Mancuso, said that much of Colombia has to take blame. "Colombia would turn another page," he said, "if in an act of faith for our country we'd stand up and say straight out: 'Yes, I'm guilty. Yes, I'm responsible.' "