Court cases show Colombian government role in paramilitary killings, U.S. implicated
November 12, 2021 8:41 AM CST BY W. T. WHITNEY JR.
Struggle over agrarian rights in Colombia led to thousands of deaths after 1946. Another 200,000 were killed between 1948 and 1958. From then until 2018, class war involving leftist guerrillas, narcotraffickers, paramilitaries, big landholders, and Colombia’s Army took the lives of further 260,000 Colombians.
The 2016 agreement ending 50 years of armed conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government might have brought peace. Since the accord was signed, however, killers, presumably paramilitaries, have taken the lives of 292 former FARC combatants and 1241 “social leaders.”
Special Forces General William Yarborough, reporting on a U.S. advisory mission to Colombia in 1962, recommended “a civil and military structure…[that could] execute paramilitary, sabotage, and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents.” Even so, paramilitary activities remained quiescent until the 1980s. From then on, paramilitary assaults multiplied in rural areas, leaving deaths, destitution, and displacement in their wake.
Revived counter-insurgency leanings and the perennial anti-communism of Colombia’s elite, including the military, were contributing factors. Narcotraffickers and local landholders, seeking wealth and also protection from leftist guerrillas, cooperated in forming new paramilitary units. Violent incidents have mounted since, media reports attributing them to “unknown assailants” or the like. Colombian and U.S. political leaders generally ignore them.
More:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/court-cases-show-colombian-government-role-in-paramilitary-killings-u-s-implicated/
