COLOMBIA Militia leader: We're the last hope

Although leaders have been indicted, they still receive support.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Indicted on charges of shipping tons of cocaine into the United States, right-wing militia leader Salvatore Mancuso insists he and his followers are Colombia's only hope.
Disbanding his militia, he told Colombian lawmakers recently, would be "a disaster," leading to economic collapse and bloodshed of nightmarish proportions.
Such is Colombia these days, where some say the government is forced to depend on accused traffickers, criminals and "psychopaths," as one U.S. official called them, to keep leftist insurgents at bay.
Mancuso, emboldened leader of the Self-Defense Groups of Colombia, or AUC by its Spanish initials, was indicted on cocaine trafficking charges in the United States in 2002.
Four other AUC members or leaders have also been indicted, and many others have been linked to murders, torture and disappearances.
Still get support
Despite that, many Colombians support them. That was clear in July when nearly 60 Colombian lawmakers stood and clapped after Mancuso told them: "As a reward for our sacrifices to our country, having freed half the republic of guerrillas and avoided ... another Cuba, we must not be sent to jail."
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who issued a 48-hour safe-conduct pass for Mancuso so that he could appear in Bogota, said he was only trying to find an end to the war.
That led to a flurry of accusations that Uribe had a cozy relationship with the paramilitary groups.
His supporters denied that and said his soldiers and police, numbering 245,000, had captured or killed 1,601 militia members in the first seven months of the year.
Still, many criticized the appearance of Mancuso and two other militia leaders in Congress.
The government fails "to recognize that they're to blame for atrocious crimes and worse yet ... there's been no justice," Rep. Gina Parody said.
The armed conflict in the nation of 42 million began in 1964. Since then, more than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million forced from their homes.
About rebel group
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC by its Spanish initials, is the oldest and largest rebel group with an estimated 28,000 fighters. Homegrown militia groups that sprung up in the 1980s and were financed by drug lords number about 15,000, up from 12,000 just a year ago.
"Surprisingly, paramilitary groups have a more solid social base than the guerrillas do, which is why I think they are more dangerous," said Andres Villamizar, an analyst with the Security and Democracy Foundation, an independent Bogota research group. "Paramilitary groups are involved in all sorts of illegal activities. They foster corruption, generate violence and hurt the legitimacy of the state."
Other experts agree.
"Paramilitary militias are becoming very powerful and nothing is being done about it," said Sergio Jaramillo, former strategic adviser to Colombia's defense minister.
Militia supporters control at least 15 percent of the votes in Colombia's congress, up from 3 percent just a few years ago, lawmakers say.