Colombia, Militias Start Peace Bid

The government and paramilitary chiefs inaugurated a special zone for negotiations and kicked off peace talks Thursday at a sober ceremony designed to dispel skepticism.

About 400 guests attended the inauguration of the so-called location zone, a 144-square-mile swath of northern cattle ranches and emerald hills. The land has been put aside for talks between government envoys and warlords from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, an umbrella group for death squads responsible for some of the worst atrocities during this country’s decades-long civil conflict.

While inside the zone, AUC commanders are exempt from arrest warrants for violent crimes and can move about with a cadre of armed bodyguards.

“The hour of peace has arrived,” announced AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso, who wore a guayabera shirt and slacks, rather than his usual fatigues, and timed his comments for Colombia’s much-watched midday newscast. In his first live speech, he sought to portray the paramilitaries as groups that had broken with their dark past and were looking for a political way forward.

“I am a businessman and a family man like many who accompany us here, taken from the bosom of his home by the war,” he told spectators who fanned themselves under a huge blue tent.

Hundreds of invitees and many foreign ambassadors failed to attend the ceremony, however, in a sign of skepticism about the peace talks and general distrust of the AUC. Critics point out that paramilitary fighters have massacred hundreds of impoverished farmers they accused of collaborating with Marxist insurgents. They also accuse the AUC of pursuing peace in order to legalize millions of dollars in drug profits.

Signaling just how vulnerable the process has become, the ceremony itself was almost scuttled when paramilitary commander Rodrigo Tovar, known as “Jorge 40,” kidnapped a former senator. The senator has since been released.

A team of eight officials from the Organization of American States will take over the prickly task of monitoring AUC activities to safeguard against cease-fire violations. The OAS also will inventory the AUC’s weapons and communications equipment inside the zone.

The ceremony coincided with a round of stinging criticism aimed at paramilitary leaders by U.S. Ambassador William Wood. The diplomat has questioned the militias’ motives in the past, and has called key commanders drug lords. And in a weekend interview timed for the launch of the AUC haven, he fired another salvo.

“I’m not sure the self-defense groups have a political goal or that they have a political agenda,” he told the newsmagazine Cambio. “They have only one program: narco-terror. And only one agenda: destruction.”

Also taking the podium Thursday, Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo called on the paramilitaries to renew their commitment to the unilateral cease-fire they declared in 2002 as a prerequisite to talks. By the government’s count, the paramilitaries have killed hundreds of civilians in violation of the cease-fire, although paramilitary massacres have declined overall.

“A peace process will prove useless if it only serves to save appearances,” Restrepo said. “To accept negotiations with violence would be to signal that human life and liberty are negotiable.”

As the ceremony closed, AUC assistants handed out black and white straw hats, a hallmark of the northern cattle country where the organization grew up. Restrepo’s office distributed prayer cards.

The event’s formal tone seemed designed to avoid any memory of an earlier peace attempt with Marxist rebels that collapsed in early 2002. Those negotiations opened with a bang, including an all-day party of ranchero bands, steak and beer, and later fizzled into resentment as rebel violence escalated.

Hard-line President Alvaro Uribe has vowed not to repeat the experience.

Whereas the rebels, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, were handed a peace zone roughly the size of Switzerland, the paramilitaries so far have received just the small swath of land bordering the tiny village of Santa Fe de Ralito, where talks are being held.

In another break from the failed rebel talks, where insurgents sat down at the peace table with rifles resting on their knees, paramilitary negotiators at Thursday’s ceremony were mostly unarmed.

Analysts warn that the paramilitary peace process still has several major obstacles to overcome before moving on to the next phase: a gradual demobilization of fighters. For one, the paramilitaries have staunchly refused to be jailed for past atrocities, contrary to the stipulations of a reduced sentencing bill to be debated in Congress this month.

“If you did something wrong in your past, if you’re ready to change, they should give you a chance. You should be able to start from zero,” said a former paramilitary fighter who identified himself as Omega. Having lost a leg to a rebel land mine, Omega wore the black sweatsuit of the AUC’s rustic rehabilitation clinic in Santa Fe de Ralito. On his wrist, he wore a red ribbon bearing the word “peace.”

Other fighters said they would demobilize only if the government helped them find jobs.

“I don’t have experience in anything else,” said a fighter who identified himself as Fabian. “Here we have food, a place to sleep. We need something we can live off.”

Perhaps the biggest obstacle involves U.S. extradition orders that are pending against two paramilitary chiefs, including Mancuso, on charges they sent tons of cocaine to the United States.

Political analyst Victor Negrete, of the northern Sinu University, said he was optimistic that the peace process would bear fruit, but he said he doubled that all 20,000 paramilitary fighters would be demobilized.

“Colombians understand that in a negotiation we have to give a little,” he said. “If half demobilize, that’s success, undoubtedly.”