Rights group warns against Colombian “neo-paramilitaries”

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report published yesterday highlighted the resurgence of criminal groups linked to Colombia’s rightist paramilitaries.

The HRW study entitled points out the crime and abuses by criminal groups that have emerged from the demobilization of the country’s AUC paramilitaries between 2003 and 2006. Most of the 30,000 demobilized soldiers have never really left the AUC structure and new recruits have taken their place according to the
scathing report.

The report also warned about the sharp increase in violence in urban areas as a result of paramilitary successors and comes after public backlash against president Alvaro Uribe’s unusual plan to pay Medellin schoolchildren as informants.

As to be expected the government’s reply was to strongly denounce the report; a Defense Ministry statement claimed “Colombian paramilitaries have been extinguished.” Such a shortsighted view was rebutted by HRW:

"Whatever you call these groups - whether paramilitaries, gangs, or some other name - their impact on human rights in Colombia today should not be minimized," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Like the paramilitaries, these successor groups are committing horrific atrocities, and they need to be stopped."

The HRW report comes at a sensitive time for a proposed U.S.-Colombia free trade pact that has been stalled due to the concern of Democratic lawmakers over violence and human rights abuses.

Image- CBS News (“A member of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) raises his weapon during a demobilization ceremony in Tibu, northeast of Bogota, December 10, 2004.”)
Online Sources- UPI, CNN, Human Rights watch, Colombia Reports, Reuters, El Espectador