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<h1 id="reader-title">End The Silence About Colombia's
Paramilitary Death Squads</h1>
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<div id="reader-estimated-time"><span
class="timestamp__date--published">10/31/2017 - </span><span
class="timestamp__date--published"><a
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data-beacon-parsed="true">Dan Kovalik</a></span></div>
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data-sharingtitle="End The Silence About Colombia's
Paramilitary Death Squads"
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<p>Though you would not know it from the utter
silence of the mainstream press, Colombia
continues to be plagued by right-wing paramilitary
violence. As Justice for Colombia in the UK
explains, <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/news/article/2715/at-least-four-social-leaders-murdered-in-two-days"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"over
100 social and political
activists","mpid":1,"plid":"http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/news/article/2715/at-least-four-social-leaders-murdered-in-two-days"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">over
100 social and political activists </a>have
been killed so far in 2017, and the <a
rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/october-update-colombian-community-leaders-defenders-face-ongoing-security-crisis/"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"paramilitaries
are responsible for the lion’s
share","mpid":2,"plid":"https://www.wola.org/analysis/october-update-colombian-community-leaders-defenders-face-ongoing-security-crisis/"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">paramilitaries
are responsible for the lion’s share</a> of
these killings. The <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39717336"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"BBC
recently
explained","mpid":3,"plid":"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39717336"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">BBC
recently explained</a> that the murder of
social, political and human rights activists is
actually increasing in Colombia even as the
overall murder rate in Colombia is decreasing, and
despite the disarming of the left-wing FARC
guerillas as part of the Colombian peace accords.
Indeed, it is quite clear that the paramilitary
groups are exploiting the very absence of the FARC
guerillas to acquire territory and to violently
wipe out peaceful social movements in Colombia.
And, this is all according to plan. </p>
<p>Thus, the paramilitary death squads trace their
roots back to the early 1960’s when <a
rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer2.htm"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"U.S.
General William P. Yarborough first conceived of
them","mpid":4,"plid":"https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer2.htm"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">U.S.
General William P. Yarborough first conceived of
them</a> as an instrument to advance U.S.
economic interests by violently destroying
progressive social movements. The idea was that
because the paramilitaries are not official
military forces, the U.S. and its allies would
have plausible deniability for their conduct. In
other words, they would be a “<em>hidden weapon</em>
. . . of hired killers” which carry out the dirty
war which the regular troops “cannot do
officially.” </p>
<p>The paramilitaries continue to serve these very
same functions to the present day, and the
Colombian and U.S. governments claim complete
deniability for their atrocities by denying their
very existence. As <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombia-Denies-UN-Claim-of-Paramilitary-Linked-Violence-20170502-0038.html"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"Telesur","mpid":5,"plid":"https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombia-Denies-UN-Claim-of-Paramilitary-Linked-Violence-20170502-0038.html"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">Telesur</a>
explained in a recent article:</p>
<div class="content-list-component
bn-content-list-text text"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"citation"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true">
<blockquote>Paramilitary groups in Colombia are
typically linked to powerful oligarchs within
Colombia as well as multinational companies
seeking to secure economic interests in
resource-rich Colombian land. Many of these
armed right-wing civilian groups also stocked
their arsenals thanks to Plan Colombia, a 1999
counterinsurgency initiative that saw the U.S.
pour billions of dollars into the country for
the purpose of further militarizing the region.
The year 2016 witnessed the blossoming of such
far-right paramilitary and narco-paramilitary
groups, who extended their regional presence and
visibility. </blockquote>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component
bn-content-list-text text"
data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"citation"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true">
<blockquote>The Colombian government, however, has
largely denied the existence of such armed
groups, even when the groups post videos of
themselves training in the rural countryside. </blockquote>
</div>
<p>And, of course, the mainstream U.S. press is
complicit in covering up the very existence of
these paramilitary groups by giving them zero
media coverage. </p>
<p>The results of all of this are devastating,
especially for the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous
communities who, as usual, bear the brunt of
paramilitary violence. <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/AMR2373572017ENGLISH.pdf"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"According
to Amnesty
International","mpid":6,"plid":"https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/AMR2373572017ENGLISH.pdf"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">According
to Amnesty International</a>:</p>
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<div class="content-list-component
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<blockquote>In some departments, including Chocó,
Cauca, Antioquia and Norte de Santander, crimes
under international law and human rights
violations persist, including the murder of
members of AfroColombian communities and
Indigenous Peoples, collective forced
displacements, confinement of communities in
certain areas of the country, forced recruitment
of children to serve in the armed groups, sexual
violence, and the use of anti-personnel mines. </blockquote>
</div>
<p>In terms of the forced displacements, the numbers
in Colombia are staggering. Colombia has over 7.4
million internally displaced peoples (IDPs) — out
of a total population of about 50 million — and,
as the <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2017/3/58c26e114/forced-displacement-growing-colombia-despite-peace-agreement.html"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"UN
High Commission on Refugees
notes","mpid":7,"plid":"http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2017/3/58c26e114/forced-displacement-growing-colombia-despite-peace-agreement.html"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">UN
High Commission on Refugees notes</a>, a
disproportionate number of these are
Afro-Colombians (10% of the IDPs) and Indigenous
(3%). In the northern region of Colombia’s Chocó
Department, which is largely Afro-Colombian, <a
rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/october-update-colombian-community-leaders-defenders-face-ongoing-security-crisis/"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"the
paramilitaries now control 17 of the 23
communities
there","mpid":8,"plid":"https://www.wola.org/analysis/october-update-colombian-community-leaders-defenders-face-ongoing-security-crisis/"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">the
paramilitaries now control 17 of the 23
communities there</a>, and they rule over these
communities by intimidating and restricting the
movement of the residents and by threatening the
lives of community leaders and human rights
defenders. </p>
<p>The good news is that the people of Colombia are
fighting back with <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombians-Launch-Indefinite-National-Strike-Against-Killings-20171023-0005.html"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"an
indefinite national
strike","mpid":9,"plid":"https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombians-Launch-Indefinite-National-Strike-Against-Killings-20171023-0005.html"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">an
indefinite national strike </a>which social,
peasant and labor groups called a week ago to
protest the increasing killings of their leaders
and members. However, protesters involved in this
strike are themselves <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://afgj.org/urgent-colombias-national-strike-attack-catatumbo-please-act-now"
target="_blank"
data-beacon="{"p":{"lnid":"being
attacked by Colombian state
forces","mpid":10,"plid":"https://afgj.org/urgent-colombias-national-strike-attack-catatumbo-please-act-now"}}"
data-beacon-parsed="true" class="bn-clickable">being
attacked by Colombian state forces</a>,
particularly in the peasant region of Catatumbo,
near the Venezuelan border. </p>
<p>Of course, as we know, if such repression were
taking place in Venezuela, this would make the
front page of the newspapers and the top of the
NPR news hour. One must ask themselves why there
is such a disparity in coverage. The answer is
both simple and disturbing. As Noam Chomsky taught
us long ago, the U.S media focuses on the crimes —
whether real, fake or imagined — of the U.S.’s
ostensible enemies and adversaries while remaining
relatively silent about the crimes of the U.S and
its allies. The silence about the extraordinary
human rights crisis in Colombia — the U.S.’s
closest ally in the Western Hemisphere — has been
deafening for way too long, and too many innocent
lives are being lost as a result.</p>
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Freedom Archives
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