New Chapter in Drug Trade

In Wake of Colombia's U.S.-Backed Disarmament Process, Ex-Paramilitary Fighters Regroup Into Criminal Gangs

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's cocaine trade has never been controlled by a single cast of characters.

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar and other flamboyant cocaine cowboys, wielding billions of dollars and armies of hit men, nearly brought the state to its knees. Their deaths ushered in more discreet groups, so-called baby cartels, that outsourced trafficking and murder to gangs. Then came a paramilitary force that relied on cocaine to fund a war against Marxist rebels, a bloody phase the government says ended with the disarmament of militias last year.

Now, in the latest evolution of Colombia's unremitting drug trade, new criminal gangs led by former mid-level paramilitary commanders have surfaced in about half of Colombia's 32 states. Authorities here estimate that the groups -- steeped in violence and outfitted like armies -- have a combined force of anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 fighters. As many as 17 percent of them are said to be former paramilitary members.

Their emergence -- outlined in interviews in two regions heavily affected by drug trafficking and in recent reports by the Organization of American States, the Colombian government and the United Nations -- is undermining a demobilization that authorities tout as having removed 32,000 fighters from a long, shadowy war.

"The danger is that these groups have a big fountain of revenue that comes from narco-trafficking and permits them to develop, recruit people and to continue affecting the population," said Sergio Caramagna, chief of an OAS team that monitored the three-year disarmament process.

The OAS document and other reports conclude that the new groups do not have a central command or the national reach or political objectives of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the powerful coalition of paramilitary groups that was officially demobilized. That organization, known by the Spanish initials AUC, worked closely with Colombian army units and corrupt politicians to erode support for leftist guerrillas, launching campaigns that killed thousands of civilians.

The overarching objective of the new groups is to control Colombia's lucrative cocaine trade, and they confront those individuals or groups that stand in their way. At the same time, some of the groups are using the same tactics that paramilitary groups were known for: engaging guerrillas in combat, targeting rights workers and displacing peasants from farmland.

Political analysts say the emergence of the groups happened because the government failed to adequately track mid-level commanders, some of whom posed as low-level fighters during demobilization ceremonies.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of those mid-level commanders saw an opportunity to obtain the power and influence they had never had, said Ivan Duque, a former paramilitary commander, and Rafael Garcia, a former intelligence operative convicted of collaborating with paramilitary groups. Those commanders were then able to appeal to rank-and-file fighters, who never viewed the government stipend and workshops that came with the disarmament as a viable alternative to a life of crime.

"These guys don't know anything except how to fire a gun, how to kill people," said Garcia. "And as long as they don't find jobs, they'll do what they know how to do."

In the northeastern state of Cesar, where politicians and paramilitary fighters formed an alliance to raid state coffers and rig elections, little appears to have changed. After the AUC demobilized, a group calling itself the Black Eagles entered the southern part of the state with 150 heavily armed men in December 2005 and massacred villagers.

Reports show that group and others have since assumed control of the lucrative cocaine pipeline through the porous Venezuelan border. Like the AUC, the new groups have also tried to influence politics in the region ahead of next month's local elections, said Alejandra Barrios, director of the Bogota-based Electoral Observation Mission, which monitors elections. In August, one politician was slain, and others have been threatened.