An Alliance Between Colombia's Paramilitaries and Marxists?

There's a fascinating article in today's Miami Herald about what the conflict in Colombia is really about now: dollars.

In recent months, U.S. and Colombian authorities have noticed an alarming amount of direct contact between right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas from the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. They are not fighting, authorities say, but working or doing business together.

The motives for this cooperation vary. In some cases, the groups have teamed up to fight a mutual enemy encroaching on an important drug-trafficking corridor. In others, they've traded drug-processing materials for coca. They've also reached nonaggression pacts to facilitate the transport of illicit drugs.

''Every day we see that the border that existed between guerrillas and paramilitary groups has dissipated because of the drug-trafficking interests, the need to survive,'' said Col. Oscar Naranjo, director of DIJIN, the police's investigative unit.

This is why when Salvatore Mancuso, the AUC leader sheds his crocodile tears about the sacrifice he says he's made in fighting the FARC, I don't know whether to laugh or vomit. I think vomiting is the right reaction now.

Comments

[Stephen]

All the more reason to have them all disarm.