On January 19th in Bogota, the city section of El Tiempo, Colombia's newspaper of record, ran a report which sent shivers through most urban readers. Over a photograph of a unit of heavily armed young men in battle fatigues, wearing the insignia AUC (United Self Defence Forces of Colombia), the headline read, "Paras Enter Bogota". Carlos Castano, Latin America's most feared and efficient death-squad leader and commander of the fastest growing armed force in the country - the 8,000 strong AUC - had announced that the "Frente Capital" "had entered the Colombian capital to disrupt the guerrillas' urban support network".
Thus the civil war between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas may finally be making its way from the countryside into the cities. If the shaky peace process breaks down, what kind of urban warfare would be in store for Bogota? Might this teeming city of eight million people become another Beirut, with street battles on every corner as guerrillas and paras fight for control from block to block, in a Latin version of the Battle of Algiers? Or would the urban drama follow a more sinister script? Across ever-increasing regions of Colombia, the arrival of truckloads of paramilitary gunmen in isolated villages and towns day and night, and often abetted by local security forces, brings death and displacement to civilians on a daily basis. Yet, until recently, AUC forces had not invaded a major city. That has now changed.
The strategic oil-producing city of Barrancabermeja is six hours from Bogota. Surrounded by rich oil deposits, the city was built on the muddy banks of the Magdalena River, one of Latin America's greatest waterways, for one purpose only: to provide the work force for Ecopetrol, Colombia's state-owned petrol refinery. Though little oil wealth remains in the city or the region, Ecopetrol pumps 75 per cent of the nation's oil production from Barrancabermeja's grimy, polluted river port. And, although a combined contingent of army, navy and police is stationed here to provide security for Ecopetrol, their protection does not extend to Barrancabermeja's quarter of a million inhabitants. On December 22nd, 140 of Castano's AUC gunmen entered the impoverished north-eastern sector of the city and began systematically to terrorise one working class neighbourhood after another.
In January, after this paramilitary offensive had chalked up 53 assassinations in the first 30 days of the year, the Bishop of Barrancabermeja, Monsignor Jaime Prieto, described the situation thus: "Analyse the reality of this city. What do you see? You see a keg full of petrol, and right beside it, a naked flame. That's what you call a time bomb. Barrancabermeja is a time bomb."
The paramilitaries first came to the city in May 1998. Two truckloads of hooded, armed men drove past army and police checkpoints and pulled up on a local football field. It was a Saturday, around 10 p.m., and the neighbourhood was holding a party. When the first shots rang out, people assumed it was fireworks. The paramilitaries killed 11 young men that night, and abducted 25 others who were never seen again, alive or dead. Carlos Castano claimed they were dead, and incinerated.
The current onslaught is the result of the Colombian government's efforts to establish a demilitarised zone in the region and start negotiations with Colombia's second largest guerrilla force, the Army of National Liberation (ELN). A year ago, the government and ELN leaders agreed to establish a "peace zone" in territory near the city which was traditionally controlled by the ELN, but now in the hands of AUC. Demonstrating his political and military control, Castano mobilised mass demonstrations to block the proposed "peace zone" and threatened to arm the local population and unleash civil war if the government insisted on going ahead.
Twenty thousand protesters threw up barricades on the Pan American Highway, and - funded by regional cattlemen, landowners, narco-traffickers and business leaders - they paralysed all traffic by road and river for 20 days. By the time the government capitulated, the protests had cost the country $2 million and the peace accord with the ELN was back on the drawing board. Twelve months later, the ELN and the government have agreed to a reduced "peace zone" consisting of two small municipalities. The European Commission has offered to invest $200 million for regional development once the peace talks start, yet the government remains unable to resolve the impasse.
As so often happens in Colombia, the AUC's December incursion in Barrancabermeja was an "invasion foretold". In April, Castano's local commander, alias "Julian", had announced that his forces were in Barrancabermeja and would take control of the city by December. AUC actions follow an established pattern. First, a "black hand", silently, anonymously, circulates a list of those declared "military objectives." Then the killing starts. In Barrancabermeja, the murders began in the summer with 56 assassinations in June.
By July, there were 62. By the end of the year, 567 people had been gunned down on the streets, in shops and cafes, at their offices and in their homes. Among the targets of these "macabre human huntsmen", as a local newspaper described the killers, were doctors, teachers, secretaries, union members, municipal officials, taxi drivers, church workers and human rights defenders.
The police saw nothing, knew nothing, did nothing. Witnesses were too frightened to testify. A petrified silence protected the killers. By the time that gun-toting paramilitary squads appeared openly on the streets, the panic created by these assassinations had weakened the popular organisations and ruptured the trust on which community solidarity depends.
In the second stage, the gunmen tighten the screws. In the poor areas of Barrancabermeja they set up road blocks, sealed off streets and went to work. They had a list of suspected guerrilla sympathisers whom they dragged from their houses and shot, or abducted. Gunmen broke down doors, forced residents to hand over the keys and moved in. They then exploited these captive families to extract information about their neighbours, as well as provide their meals, run their errands and obey their orders. Then they cut the telephone lines and went from house to house seizing mobile phones. Next they went for the community leaders.
For 30 years, the guerrillas were a fact of life in Barrancabermeja, and locals and rebels co-existed in non-confrontational ways. Unemployment at 30 per cent offered a steady source of rebel recruits.
Contraband petrol, acquired by puncturing local pipelines, provided a stream of illegal funding; forking over a "protection fee" was a recognised part of the overhead for doing business in the city. Yet, to describe what is happening in the city today as an urban battle between guerrillas and paramilitaries is to miss the point. Since 1998, the focus of the counter-revolutionary war has shifted, and Castano's campaign to win control of Barrancabermeja has revealed the wider political and strategic agenda behind the offensive, geared to destroy or gain control over the government and the peace process. In the neighbourhoods where Castano's gunmen are imposing their totalitarian dictat, the guerrillas have long fled, or, seduced by AUC power, money, weapons and cellphones, yesterday's rebels have switched sides. But, neglected by successive Colombian governments, the people here maintain highly developed autonomous community organisations. It is these groups the AUC wants to destroy.