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July 21, 2009
My first encounter with paramilitaries in action
Last week, I saw local paramilitaries in action for the first time during this visit to Medellin. Before I get into any details, a bit of history:
In the mid-90s, Alvaro Uribe - then governor of Antioquia and now President of Colombia - encouraged and supported the creation of community defense groups known as CONVIVIR. These were essentially citizen militias authorized by the state to maintain order because, at the time, the state was overwhelmed by guerrilla and drug cartel violence.
Critics worried that these CONVIVIR would simply become absorbed into the broader Colombian paramilitary movement. At the time, paramilitary groups were joining forces throughout the country and growing in power. By the late 1990's, they were responsible for more violent crimes than all other actors in Colombia's armed conflict combined.
Critics' fears were soon confirmed. In downtown Medellin, the CONVIVIR became a powerful paramilitary mafia. Their main business was extortion, but they also collaborated in other criminal activities with the rest of the paramilitary forces. CONVIVIR have been known to demand protection money from nearly every business in scores of blocks in the center of Medellin. When people refuse to pay, they have been known to murder business owners and even detonate explosives in stores.
On the other hand, the CONVIVIR also provide protection. They are the main reason behind crime reductions in downtown shopping areas. Today, I can safely walk home from the office, which would have been impossible years ago.
On Thursday afternoon, while walking to a friend’s apartment, I saw a minor altercation between two people about a block from my house. As I walked by, one of the two men accused the other of trying to steal from him. Immediately, seemingly out of nowhere, about six or seven men rushed onto the street to handle the situation. They quickly dragged the alleged thief away, beating him up as they took him into a nearby building.
About an hour later, as I was walking back home, I saw alleged thief being taken away by the police, without handcuffs, on the back of one of their motorcycles. The men who had dragged him away were talking casually on a nearby street corner.
These men, presumably CONVIVIR or other local paramilitaries, are part of a broader phenomenon of informal justice in Colombia. What I assume happened is that they physically assaulted the alleged thief, warned him never to come back, and handed him to the police, who then gave him some form of minor punishment or even took a bribe.
Very few people denounce the existence of CONVIVIR to the authorities. Some of them are afraid, given their power and collaboration with the authorities. Most, however, are indifferent or tolerant of the phenomenon, either because they believe them to be an effective crime-fighting force or because they don't really see the CONVIVIR as abnormal in any way.
Informal justice is rampant in Colombia, and there is little evidence that it is going away. Decades of state absence or indifference has created deeply entrenched criminal organizations who enforce justice on their own terms. Many neighborhoods of Medellin are ruled not by the state, but by the law of 'survival of the fittest'. These days, the 'fittest' in some areas are indeed the police. In many other cases, however, they are armed gangs, paramilitary groups and CONVIVIR.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at July 21, 2009 11:31 AM
Comments
wow
Posted by: nadia at July 21, 2009 11:53 PM
