As FARC prepares to demobilize, neo-paramilitaries settle in rebel territory
As FARC prepares to demobilize, neo-paramilitaries settle in rebel territory
Posted by Adriaan Alsema on Dec 14, 2015
In the years that leftist rebel group FARC has been negotiating peace with the government, paramilitary successor group “Los Urabeños” nearly doubled its territory and has settled in areas traditionally under guerrilla control.
The Urabeños are Colombia’s most powerful drug trafficking organization and the main offshoot of the AUC. This paramilitary organization fought leftist forces and usurped drug cartels’ businesses between 1997 and 2006 when its last block formally demobilized.
However, under the leadership of the late AUC founder Vicente Castaño and one of his subordinates, “Don Mario,” thousand of AUC members remained in arms and maintained control over some of the AUC’s main drug trafficking routes in the Uraba region.
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The Uribe administration initially denied the announced continuation of the paramilitary forces the former president falsely claimed to have dismantled. When increased paramilitary violence became impossible to ignore, the authorities began referring to the still mobilized paramilitary groups as “criminal bands” or BaCrim, disassociating the groups from the paramilitary AUC from which they were formed.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombias-largest-neo-paramilitary-group-expands-into-farc-territory/