Colombian paramilitary groups and CIA Terrorism in Colombia

See also: Right-wing paramilitarism in Colombia

U.S. General William P. Yarborough was the head of a counterinsurgency team sent to Colombia in 1962 by the US Special Warfare Center. Yarborough was one of the earliest proponents of "paramilitary ... and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents."^[109]

Colombian paramilitary groups were responsible for most of the human rights violations in the latter half of the ongoing Colombian conflict.^[110] The first paramilitary terrorist^[111] groups were organized by U.S. military advisers sent during the Cold War to combat leftist politicians, activists and guerrillas.^[112][113] According to several international human rights and governmental organizations, right-wing paramilitary groups were responsible for at least 70 to 80% of political murders in Colombia in a given year.^[110][114] Paramilitary violence and terrorism there was principally targeted to peasants, unionists, indigenous people, human rights workers, teachers and left-wing political activists or their supporters.^{[115][116][117][118][119][120][121]}

Plan Lazo

In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team", composed of counterinsurgency experts, to investigate Colombia's internal security situation, due to the increased prevalence of armed communist groups in rural Colombia which formed during and after La Violencia.^[112] Three years later, in February 1962, a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.^[122]

In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists, stating:

A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States.^{[123][124][125]}

The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Among other policy recommendations, the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges, any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature."^{[112][125][126]} It was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.^[127]

Armed Forces Directive No. 200-05/91

In 1990, the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U.S. Embassy's Military Group, U.S. Southern Command, the DIA, and the CIA in order to give advice on the reshaping of several of the Colombian military's local intelligence networks, ostensibly to aid the Colombian military in "counter-narcotics" efforts.^[114] Advice was also solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence, but the U.S. proposals were ultimately selected by the Colombian military.^[128] The result of these meetings was Armed Forces Directive 200-05/91, issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in May 1991. However, the order itself made no mention of drugs or counter-narcotics operations at all, and instead focused exclusively on creating covert intelligence networks to combat the insurgency.^[128]

Human Rights Watch concluded that these intelligence networks subsequently laid the groundwork for an illegal, covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries. Human Rights Watch argued that the restructuring process solidified links between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups, by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities. In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a "secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder".^[114] Human Rights Watch argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links to or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch stated that the military intelligence networks created by the U.S. reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence, stating that the "recommendations were given despite the fact that some of the U.S. officials who collaborated with the team knew of the Colombian military's record of human rights abuses and its ongoing relations with paramilitaries".^[114]

Human Rights Watch stated that while "not all paramilitaries are intimate partners with the military", the existing partnership between paramilitaries and the Colombian military was "a sophisticated mechanism, in part supported by years of advice, training, weaponry, and official silence by the United States, that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it."^[129] As an example of increased violence and "dirty war" tactics, Human Rights Watch cited a partnership between the Colombian Navy and the MAS^[who?], in Barrancabermeja where: "In partnership with MAS, the navy intelligence network set up in Barrancabermeja adopted as its goal not only the elimination of anyone perceived as supporting the guerrillas, but also members of the political opposition, journalists, trade unionists, and human rights workers, particularly if they investigated or criticized their terror tactics."^[114]

Los Pepes

Main article: Los Pepes

In 1992, Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison, La Catedral. Shortly thereafter, the Calí drug cartel, dissidents within the Medellín cartel and the MAS worked together to create a new paramilitary organization known as Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar ("People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar", Los Pepes) with the purpose of tracking down and killing Pablo Escobar and his associates. The leader of the organization was Fidel Castaño.^{[130][131][132][133]} The Calí cartel provided $50 million for weapons, informants, and assassins, with in hope of wiping out their primary rivals in the cocaine business.^[134] Both Colombian and U.S. government agencies (including the DEA, CIA and State Department) provided intelligence to Los Pepes.^[131]

The Institute for Policy Studies is searching^[when?] for details of connections the CIA and DEA had to Los Pepes. They have launched a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the CIA. That suit has resulted in the declassification of thousands of documents from the CIA as well as other U.S. agencies, including the Department of State, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S Coast Guard. These documents have been made public at the website "Pepes Project"