Adam goes over the Colombia and Panama free-trade agreements currently stalled in Congress, UN and U.S. findings about cocaine production, and increasing uncertainty in Venezuela about Hugo Chávez's health.

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Ecuadorian authorities yesterday arrested Andrés Guaje Chalá, alias "Danilo," who according to press reports is the chief of the 48th Front of Colombia's FARC guerrillas. "Danilo" was captured in central Quito.

The 48th Front is one of the FARC's most active and wealthiest. It operates in the department of Putumayo, along the border with Ecuador, where it controls a major route for the transshipment of cocaine. It reportedly does business with the Rastrojos paramilitary group, and is one of the fronts that the rest of the guerrilla group undoubtedly uses as an "ATM" and a conduit for obtaining weapons.

Today's headline looks very familiar. This appears to be the fourth time since February 2010 that Colombian security forces have killed or captured the 48th Front's commander.

• In February 2010, Colombia's police and air force announced that they had killed 48th Front commander Ángel Gabriel Losada García, alias "Édgar Tovar," a month earlier.
• In September 2010, Colombia's police and air force announced that they had killed 48th Front commander Sixto Antonio Cabana Guillén, alias "Domingo Biojó."
• In March 2011, Colombia's army announced that it had killed the 48th Front's notorious political and financial chief, Oliver Solarte, who had apparently succeeded Cabana as overall front commander.

Last week, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on two occasions that, in addition to the “black hand” of far-left violence – the FARC and ELN – there is another “black hand” on Colombia’s far right. The latter are, in Santos’s words, “those who don’t want victims to get reparations, who don’t want land restored to campesinos, those who also want to exaggerate insecurity in order to say ‘this country is in chaos.’”

Santos’s words about a violent, shadowy far-right inspired four different commentaries in yesterday’s issue of the country’s principal newsweekly, Semana.

• A feature article contends that using the “black hand” term is a way to avoid the politically difficult responsibility of actually investigating, prosecuting and naming those responsible for serious crimes. It’s easier to blame it on a shadowy, untouchable right-wing network.

Why use a category that, instead of clarifying, doesn’t name those responsible, when these could be relatively easily identified if serious investigative efforts are made? Why doesn’t Santos name those who are behind the murders of victims and order the security institutions to take appropriate measures? In the old national tradition, “the black hand” has been less of an accusation than an excuse for not acting.

• Columnist León Valencia says that while Santos did not identify anybody, Colombia’s ultra-right wing is easily identifiable.

Time and again, they take advantage of the cycles of violence to amass large fortunes, and they have a strange obsession for landholding. From the 1950s confrontation between liberals and conservatives they emerged with part of the best coffee and cattle-producing lands. They have used the tortuous war that the country has lived through since the early 1980s to sack the state’s resources and to appropriate and legalize narcotrafficking income, to steal land from millions of campesinos, and to get their hands into oil and mining.

• Columnist Antonio Caballero says that Santos’s government has sharpened a division on Colombia’s right wing.

The fight is not between right and left, but between two shades of the right. Between the archaic, rural, violent, barbarous right, whose incarnation is [former President Álvaro] Uribe and his friends (many of them, it’s worth remembering, imprisoned today for their alliances with paramilitaries), and the modern, urban and non-violent right: what in other countries is called the “civilized right.”

• Columnist María Jimena Duzán says that some of President Santos’s more moderate political positions – like his sponsorship of a recently passed law mandating restitution to victims – run counter to what the country’s far right expected of him, given that he served as defense minister in former President Álvaro Uribe’s very conservative government. She points to a recently inaugurated “National Restoration” website as evidence that the country’s far right is mobilizing to oppose Santos.

The extreme right feels betrayed by the direction that President Santos has given his government. They don’t understand why Juan Manuel is concerned with restoring land to victims instead of leaving them to the victimizers who voted for him. And I don’t blame them: to those of us who didn’t vote for Juan Manuel, this new Santos has us equally surprised. In any case, there is nothing more dangerous than an enraged extreme right, like the one that is becoming resurgent. How frightening.

Here is an overview of the principal "emerging criminal groups" in Colombia. The Colombian government refers to them as "Bacrim" (Bandas Criminales), and along with leftist guerrillas they are among the country's principal narcotraffickers. These groups are often called "new paramilitaries" because most are led by former mid-level commanders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the paramilitary umbrella organization that underwent a formal demobilization in 2006.

Since then, the following groups have proliferated. Thanks to WOLA Intern Connor Pierson for compiling this overview.

Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles)

Territory:

• Active in 99 municipalities in 20 departments ranging from inland Norte de Santander (where the name is said to have been first used) to the Caribbean coast of Magdalena and as far south as Nariño on the Pacific coast.

Membership:

• Up to 4,000 members -- but probably much less as the group appears to be declining.

Leadership:

• Lacks a cohesive leadership structure and factions often appear to operate individually, taking the name almost along a "franchise" model.
• Former AUC leader Vicente Castaño, originally of the Córdoba and Urabá bloc (ACCU) is rumored to have been involved in their creation; Castaño is likely dead.

Lineage:

• High percentage of former AUC members in the group and tends to echo AUC ideology and protect former AUC trafficking routes.
• In Norte de Santander, members most likely former participants of the Bloque Catatumbo. The group’s presence in Nariño is a product of its absorption of former members of Bloque Libertadores del Sur. Many members of the group in Nariño have recently defected to the Rastrojos.
• Other former AUC blocs similarly rebranded and resumed many of their previous activities.

Notable Connections

• Each cell seemingly attempts to secure autonomy over its individual territory without larger alliances.

Recent news:

• Frequently in the press for the kidnapping and murder of journalists and human rights activists as well as for threats to Colombian and international NGO's.

ERPAC - Popular Revolutionary Antiterrorist Army of Colombia (Ejército Revolucionario Popular Antiterrorista Colombiano)

Territory:

• Most powerful in the eastern plains, especially municipalities of Casanare, Meta y Guaviare.
• Operations affect 36 municipalities in 14 departments including the Capital District and Antioquia.

Membership:

• 2009 estimate by the Colombian military suggested a size of 725 members.
• Number of municipalities in which the group operates grew significantly after that date.

Leadership:

• Remains tenuous since the December 25, 2010 killing, by Colombian police, of top leader Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero (alias "Cuchillo" or "Knife").

Lineage

• Emerged after Oliveiro assassinated former Bloque Centauros Leader José Miguel Arroyave in Meta, the department to the south of Bogotá, in 2005.
• Drew upon the former AUC bloc's resources.
• Grew rapidly by developing a partnership with narcotrafficker Daniel "El Loco" Barrera to process coca base in the eastern plains and export the product via Brazil and Venezuela.

Notable Connections:

• Recent territorial alliances with former rivals in FARC may explain continued expansion despite uncertain leadership.

Recent News:

• Oliveiro's brother Jesús Guerrero Castillo, alias "Carecuchillo" escaped prison to take over the organization earlier this year but was recaptured shortly after.

Los Paisas (A "Paisa" is someone from the northern Colombian department of Antioquia.)

Territory:

• Most active in Antioquia (particularly in the north and in Medellín extending to regions south of the city), Cordoba, Sucre, Atlantica and Magdalena.
• Present in 63 municipalities in 9 departments in all.

Membership:

• Consists largely of former members of the Oficina de Envigado -- a drug-trafficking organization with origins in Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel -- and the Mineros Bloc that operated in Antioquia.
• Accurate estimates regarding the group’s size and cohesion are difficult to make due to its instability of leadership.

Leadership:

• Plagued by infighting since inception.
• In 2010, leader Angel de Jesús Pacheco clashed with Cesar A. Torres, alias "Mono Vides," and Rafael Alvarez Piñeda, alias "Chepe," and left to join the Rastrojos along with hundreds of his men.
• Leadership remains uncertain in the wake of recent arrests.

Lineage:

• First emerged as a rural militia linked to the criminal syndicate the Oficina de Envigado, led by Diego Murillo, alias "Don Berna."
• Broke away from the Oficina after Berna’s 2008 extradition to the United States.
• Continues a fierce rivalry with the Urabeños, a group that initially raised tensions with the Oficina with its incursions into the territory surrounding Medellín.

Notable Connections:

• Authorities also believe some of the smuggling routes controlled by the Paisas provide narcotics to Mexican criminal syndicate the Zetas.
• The group may also have allied with factions of FARC against Los Urabeños.

Recent News:

• Luis Fernando Jaramillo Arroyave, alias "Nano," (a supposed founder) was arrested in February.
• On June 13, Colombian police captured the group’s military chief Jesus Maria Mosquera Mosquera, alias "Sangre." He allegedly had 300 people under his command at the time.

Los Urabeños: a.k.a. Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia

Territory:

• Power base lies in the Antioquia, Chocó and Córdoba departments.
• Also a force in La Guajira, Cesar, Santander and cities Medellin and Bogota.
• Active in 160 municipalities in 17 departments and controls regions of the Caribbean coast and parts of the border with Venezuela and Ecuador.

Membership:

• Total number of participants is unclear, but relies on at least 1,200 active members.
• Members often send out additional trained teams to secure areas important to trafficking.
• Numbers also bolstered by local gangs often contracted by the group.

Leadership:

• Under control of the Usuga brothers, Juan de Dios and Dario Antonio, since the 2009 imprisonment of Daniel Rendón Herrera (alias "Don Mario").

Lineage:

• After a falling out with former Centauros leader José Miguel Arroyave, Daniel Rendón Herrera fled to the Urabá region where the paramilitary group of his brother, Freddy Rendón (alias "El Alemán," currently in custody) Bloque Elmer Cardenas, held power.
• The Elmer Cardenas Bloc demobilized in 2006; Rendón gathered its remnant forces and some of the former Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) guerrilla group in order to rapidly expand into southern Córdoba, the Lower Cauca region in northern Antioquia, and parts of Medellín.
• In the two years prior to Rendón's arrest in 2009, authorities blamed over 3,000 deaths on his forces.

Notable Connections:

• Urabeños have made recent motions to secure more power in Medellín via an alliance with Maximiliano Bonilla, alias "Valenciano," a member of the disjointed Oficina de Envigado now struggling for control of the region with Erick Vargas, alias "Sebastián", also of the Oficina.

Recent News:

• In June, Rodrigo Antonio Oquendo Urrego, the "Terror of La Guajira,” was captured by authorities.

Rastrojos

Territory:

• Expanded rapidly from only six departments in 2008 to more than 22 in 2010 and operates in 185 municipalities. Likely the most powerful "new" paramilitary group as of this writing.
• Region of control has spread south from Valle del Cauca and Risaralda into the regions bordering Peru and Ecuador and North into Antioquia, Chocó, Caribe, and Norte de Santander.

Membership:

• Estimates range from 1,200 to 1,500 individuals.
• Quickly absorbing many former AUC members, and many new recruits, as growth continues.

Leadership:

• Expanded exponentially since 2009 under Luis Enrique Calle Serna, alias "Comba."

Lineage:

• Originated in 2002 as an armed wing of the defunct Norte Del Valle drug cartel, during a period of infighting between top capos Wilber Varela, alias 'Jabon.' and Diego Montoya, alias "Don Diego" that pitted Varela's Rastrojos against Montoya's now mostly defunct "Machos."
• Viewed as more "narco" than paramilitary, and thus not allowed to participate in the AUC demobilization negotiations. Remained active after Varela's murder in 2008 and Montoya's capture in 2007.

Notable Connections:

• Alleged partnership with the ELN in Cauca and Nariño since 2006.
• Recent drug-trafficking agreements with FARC in Putumayo and likely elsewhere.
• Allied with Daniel "El Loco" Barrera Barrera.

Recent News:

• Important commander Ruberney Vergara Sanabria, alias "Maniquemao," formerly associated with the Aguilas Negras, was captured in Venezuela in May.
• Increasingly suspected of attempting to eliminate the Oficina de Envigado's Maximiliano Bonilla to seize fuller control of the west coast.

Adam looks at a new Senate report on U.S. weapons' illegal flow into violence-wracked Mexico, next week's citizen security conference of Central American governments and donor nations, and security and coca-growing developments in Bolivia.

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On Monday Colombia’s defense minister, flanked by the commanders of the armed forces and police, the prosecutor-general and the vice president, announced the adoption of “15 Measures Against Impunity.” Rodrigo Rivera said the new set of policies would seek to speed up chronically slow (or inconclusive) prosecutions of the security forces’ human rights abuses.

When investigations don’t yield results rapidly, a cloak of doubt is held over the institution, which affects its legitimacy and stains military and police honor.

The link to the document laying out these 15 measures is currently broken, though Rivera’s speech offers a summary. It appears that one of these measures is to “institutionalize” cooperation with the civilian Prosecutor-General’s Office on human rights cases. This may mean (the wording is fuzzy) that there will be fewer disputes over whether a human rights case belongs in the civilian system, as Colombian jurisprudence requires, or in the military system, where impunity has long been virtually guaranteed.

The military’s efforts to keep human rights cases in its own justice system have worsened in recent years. And even when cases do make it into the civilian system — as in the notorious 2008 Soacha “False Positives” killings — the prosecution can drag on for many years.

While Colombia’s military may be committing fewer abuses lately, the persistence of impunity, even for new cases, continues to make large-scale U.S. military aid controversial. It also runs counter to the human rights conditions placed on U.S. assistance, which require the State Department to certify that Colombia’s armed forces are improving their cooperation with judicial investigators.

Minister Rivera’s new policy is welcome; it is the first time I’ve seen Colombia’s Defense Ministry take the initiative on the thorny impunity issue (as opposed to, for instance, “easier” policies like improvements in human rights training and procedures).

Nonetheless, it is just a policy. In its first ten months, the Santos government has adopted many ambitious policies and laws, from a plan to combat “new” paramilitary groups to the Victims’ Law passed last week. Once again, the real challenge will lie in implementing the policy.

As with taking land from usurpers or fighting paramilitary warlords, punishing military abusers will put the Santos government in direct confrontation with some very powerful, even ruthless, individuals and sectors. When push comes to shove, will the policy prove to be more than just a paper document?

Audio of Adam Isacson's presentation on efforts to "consolidate" security and governance in Colombia, given on June 13, 2011 at "Colombia 2020," a conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Audio of the full event is available at the CSIS website, and a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation Adam used is below.

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Carina Solmirano, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), talked to Adam Isacson and Lucila Santos about military expenditure in Latin America following the release of SIPRI Yearbook 2011.

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Solmirano co-authored the Yearbook's chapter on global military spending (a free download of the chapter is available here - click on “Sample Chapter”). She pursued her doctoral studies at the University of Denver and previously worked on defense and regional security issues in Argentina. She is part of SIPRI's Military Expenditure Project, which monitors developments in military spending worldwide and maintains the most comprehensive, consistent and extensive data source available on the topic.

SIPRI's 2011 Yearbook revealed interesting aspects of the military expenditure landscape in Latin America:

-Surprisingly, South America is the region of the world where military spending grew most rapidly, by 5.8%, a total of US$63.3 billion. This is in stark contrast with a global rise in military expenditure of 1.3% in 2010. However, in absolute terms, South America continues to be one of the regions that spends the least on its militaries. To add some perspective, the US$63.3 billion spent by South America is slightly above that spent by France alone, and represents only 4% of the total global expenditure.

-Much of it has to do with Brazil’s increase in military expenditure with a 9.3% rise in the last year. Between 2001 and 2010, Brazilian military spending increased 30%. In 2010, Brazil’s share of GDP in military spending was 1.6%, compared with 2.1% of the world share.

-Brazil, along with the United States and several other big countries, is leading the global rise in military spending. Together with Russia, China, India, South Africa and Turkey, SIPRI explains that Brazil’s increase in military expenditure is due to a rapidly growing economy and its greater economic and political role in South America, Latin America, and globally. Brazil is developing, like the other countries, as a military power by engaging in military modernization programs. In Brazil’s case, its economic growth has been a key driver of the military modernization and spending. SIPRI also claims that, given Brazil's absence of traditional military threats or regional rivalries, the investment in its military may respond to the desire of building military power as a source of status.

-Curiously enough, Paraguay and Peru had military expenditure increases of 16%.

-The only exceptions to the rise in military spending in South America during 2010 have been Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay. In Venezuela’s case, the decline in expenditure was 27%, the highest drop in the region. Another not-expected case is that of Mexico, which despite deploying the military to fight internally against drug-trafficking, has only shown an increase of 2% in its military spending.

-Finally, some observations about SIPRI’s data: measured in US dollars, Brazil is the country that spent the most militarily (US$28,096), followed by Colombia (US$9,191) and Chile (US$6,198). Even more interesting is when we look at military expenditures as a share of each country’s GDP. In Brazil’s case is 1.6%, while Colombia and Chile show the higher percentages of their GDP spent in the military: 3.7% and 3.5% respectively.

At the very end of April and beginning of May, a group from WOLA (The Washington Office on Latin America), CIP (Center for International Policy, Washington), Asociación MINGA (Bogotá), and the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ, Bogotá) traveled to Vistahermosa and San Juan de Arama, in the department of Meta, about 125 miles south of Bogotá.

These two municipalities are part of the “La Macarena” zone, shorthand for a longtime FARC guerrilla stronghold that, since about 2006-07, has been the target of heavy military and social investment. Since then, the Colombian, U.S. and other donor governments have spent about a quarter of a billion dollars (450 billion Colombian pesos) on security, crop eradication, infrastructure, governance and development programs.

The PCIM

It is called the La Macarena Integrated Consolidation Program (Spanish initials PCIM). It is by far the most advanced example of the “Integrated Action” or “Consolidation” strategy that the Colombian government, with U.S. input, has developed for establishing a state presence in about fourteen ungoverned and violent zones. Consolidation is coordinated by a national body, the Center for Coordination of Integrated Action (CCAI) in the Colombian Presidency; the PCIM’s headquarters, or “Coordination Center,” is on a military base at the entrance to Vistahermosa’s town center.

The "Coordination Center" in Vistahermosa.

For much of our group, this was a second visit to Vistahermosa; a 2009 visit contributed to a CIP report (PDF) evaluating, and expressing concerns about, the Consolidation program so far. That report gives a lot of background on the La Macarena zone’s recent history, which won’t be repeated here. Suffice it to say, though, that despite its proximity to Bogotá, this area of jungle and savannah has been systematically neglected by Colombia’s government. The population has lived for generations among guerrillas and paramilitaries, and it has been a principal coca-growing zone. In 1998 the Colombian security forces vacated much of the area, meeting a FARC pre-condition for peace talks that took place in the zone until their failure in 2002.

This year, support from the Ford Foundation has made it possible for us to return and take another look. Our most recent visit took us only to two municipalities’ town centers, in addition to a series of meetings in Meta’s departmental capital, Villavicencio. Based on this, we are not yet ready to publish a formal evaluation of the La Macarena project. We will return to the PCIM zone later this year to speak with a larger, more diverse sample of the population, as we were able to do in Tumaco in April.

Nonetheless, our meetings with officials in charge of the program, with civil-society representatives monitoring the program, and with community leaders in the two town centers are certainly enough to allow us to offer some preliminary observations. Keep in mind that these are preliminary: we have not yet been able to verify everything here to our satisfaction.

Also keep in mind that the entire Consolidation program is in a sort of “autopilot” state right now, as the 10-month-old government of President Juan Manuel Santos rethinks the entire strategy. This re-thinking, managed by 14 thematic working groups, should be more or less complete this month, when the government expects to unveil at least a “roadmap” (hoja de ruta) of where to go from here.

This may take place on Thursday the 16th, when officials in charge of Consolidation will be among the speakers at the launch of an evaluation of the program by the Fundación Ideas para la Paz, a prominent Bogotá think-tank. Among decisions the Santos government must make are the number of zones nation-wide where Consolidation will occur (a cutback is likely); the role of “Social Action,” the agency in the Colombian Presidency that manages the strategy (rather indifferently, some would say); and how to de-emphasize the military’s outsized role and speed the program’s “civilianization.”

The role of the military

What we heard leads us to conclude that the civilian handover isn’t happening. Colombian Army units within the Joint Task Force Omega, as well as some police, continue to be the PCIM’s most visible representatives, and by far its most visible face outside of the zone’s town centers. Soldiers continue to carry out public-works projects; we heard about an ambitious sewer project in Puerto Toledo, in Puerto Rico municipality, which isn’t functioning at the moment. With the exception of Social Action, getting civilian agencies to carry out infrastructure projects and other services in this sparsely populated zone continues to be a problem. And except for a few prosecutors, the justice system remains far off.

Soldiers are keeping a tight lock on security and playing basic policing roles. Roadblocks are frequent; we heard complaints about soldiers at roadblocks photographing riders’ ID cards, taking down numbers from their cellphones’ recent-calls lists, and limiting the number of people who can ride in a vehicle. This heavy-handed approach is in part a reaction to a security situation that, though better than four years ago, has grown more complicated in the past several months, as discussed below.

Titling has begun, slowly

The lack of clear land titles was a big issue in 2009 and continues to be the first complaint we heard from producer associations. Late last year, a pilot titling program finally began; the goal is to title 1,250 plots of land in twelve hamlets (veredas). Many of these titles are now in their final phase of approval: revision by the Environmental and Agrarian division of the Inspector-General’s Office (Procuraduría). Officials say the goal is eventually to title 5,000 plots in this zone.

Farmers remain concerned, though, about the likelihood that they will either lose their claim to their land or be pressured to sell to agribusiness investors. Many noted that legal “protection measures” to prevent large-scale land grabs were quietly lifted sometime in 2010, and land sales (which do take place, through signed contracts, in the absence of clear title) have been accelerating. Even without titles, though, we heard agreement that campesino producer associations — which barely existed in the zone before the PCIM’s entry — have become stronger.

USAID after OTI

On April 20, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a five-year, $115 million contract to Associates in Rural Development (ARD), a Vermont-based company that has executed a large portion of USAID’s alternative development programs in Colombia since 2005. With these funds, ARD will be supporting the “alternative livelihoods” side of Consolidation in La Macarena, as well as southern Tolima and parts of Valle del Cauca department. This will be the main non-military U.S. support to the PCIM.

A view of Meta's plains, looking south from the departmental capital, Villavicencio.

The nature of USAID’s support changed significantly this year, as its Office of Transition Initiatives — which is designed to carry out short-term, quick-impact projects with minimal bureaucracy — ended its mission (PDF) in Colombia after four years. OTI’s field office in Meta closed down at the end of March.

The former head of the OTI office at the U.S. embassy has remained in country, and now holds the title of “Coordinator Of CSDI Implementation” in the USAID mission. Still, a Colombian government official with Consolidation responsibilities told us frankly that “regular” USAID had become noticeably slower and more bureaucratic with OTI’s exit from the scene.

While local leaders expressed gratitude to donor goverments, a frequent complaint surrounded the “operadores,” the contractors and subcontractors hired to carry out infrastructure and productive projects. They charge high operational “overhead” costs, the argument goes, which means that much aid money doesn’t actually reach the target communities. Costs that contractors claim to pay for items (construction materials, livestock) are higher than communities claim to be able to obtain for them on the open market. Operators’ timeframes for projects are short (often two or three years), and they are under pressure to spend down their money by the end date. What suffers are long-term planning and the flexibility needed to work in a very fluid environment.

Despite these concerns about “operators,” however, the producer associations that have formed within the PCIM structure in both municipalities remained very dedicated to the program. We heard no accounts of increased coca planting; the reductions achieved since 2007 in the zone appear to be stable.

The security situation

Leaders in Vistahermosa also reminded us that it would have been impossible for them to come and meet with us in their town a few years ago. The FARC’s dominion over the town would have made that too risky for all of us.

"Mono Jojoy" and "El Médico" (from Semana magazine).

However, security appears to have improved only incrementally in the zone since 2009. In particular, the Consolidation program continues to face challenges in operating beyond the municipalities’ main town centers. In rural zones, armed groups remain fully able to intimidate the population.

In September of last year, a bombing raid in the PCIM zone, in the nearby municipality of La Uribe, killed the FARC’s top military commander, Víctor Julio Suárez alias “Mono Jojoy.” Contrary to what one might expect, the FARC has since been more active in Vistahermosa, San Juan de Arama, and much of the PCIM zone than it was in 2009.

This was the assessment of both military and civil-society leaders alike. The FARC leader assigned to replace Mono Jojoy, Jaime Alberto Parra alias “El Médico,” did not operate inside the same elaborate security cordon as his predecessor. This meant that the fighters assigned to Jojoy’s “security rings” — there may have been as many as 2,000 — have been freed up to go on the offensive. According to the Colombian daily El Tiempo, “Reports from demobilized guerrillas indicate that four key guerrilla fronts have increased in size.”

FARC fighters are operating in smaller groups, at times out of uniform, and carrying out more frequent attacks in the PCIM zone. These attacks are occasionally taking place in close proximity to town centers. In April, the FARC killed a police auxiliary and kidnapped two merchants in Mesetas, and killed a lieutenant and two soldiers in La Macarena. Just before that, about 10 miles outside the Vistahermosa town center, two guerrillas stopped and burned a passenger bus (the passengers were unharmed); it was the fourth such attack in six months.

Police at a roadblock handed this "wanted" leaflet, depicting a top FARC leader, to the 6-year-old son of someone we interviewed.

We heard that the FARC has reasserted control of some “pacified” towns in which police stations had not yet been established. Puerto Toledo, which we visited two years ago, is one of these.

“Several communities in the PCIM area, including communities recovered by the military as long as two years ago, have been subject to periodic, albeit brief, visits by uniformed members of the FARC,” reads USAID’s most recent report on the PCIM zone (PDF). “To address ongoing security concerns, the police will this year build permanent police stations in Santo Domingo, an important crossroads town in Vista Hermosa, and Jardin de Penas in Mesetas.”

The FARC have stepped up their targeting of civilians. This is one reason why nearly all attempts to return displaced populations, officials acknowledged, have been unsuccessful so far. Meanwhile the charging of vacunas — extortion payments, like US$15 per head of cattle — is way up, by all accounts. An official based in Villavicencio, Meta’s departmental capital, said that residents were complaining of vacunas in towns well outside the PCIM zone, such as Granada and San Martín, which had known no FARC presence for years.

We heard that the FARC are now prohibiting populations in remote parts of the PCIM zone from participating in social programs: not just the Consolidation programs, but conditional cash-transfer programs like “Families in Action,” which makes payments to parents who ensure that their children get medical checkups and go to school. Guerrillas, for instance, are prohibiting parents from traveling to town centers to collect subsidies.

We heard a few, sketchier reports that the FARC may be trying to compete with the PCIM by instituting its own social programs. A so-called “Plan Amigo,” possibly launched at the beginning of the year, purportedly includes some construction projects and an order that FARC fighters be more friendly toward, and avoid killing, civilians. (We note that Google yields no mention of any guerrilla “Plan Amigo”; we need to verify this.)

For their part, the “new” paramilitary groups active in Meta also suffered a blow late last year. In December, an elite Colombian police unit hunted down and killed Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero, alias Cuchillo (Knife), a former mid-level AUC commander whose so-called Popular Anticommunist Revolutionary Army (ERPAC) had been growing quickly — and trafficking tons of cocaine — between Meta and the Venezuelan border.

The ERPAC continues to exist, and apparently has remained strong enough to prevent other “new” paramilitary groups from entering western Meta. The group’s presence has been weaker in the PCIM zone, though, and its remnants appear to be cooperating with the FARC in the drug trade. Episodes of combat with the guerrillas have been very rare.

Next steps

Shortly, the Colombian government will complete its review of the Consolidation plan, and ARD, the contractor, will launch new projects in the PCIM zone.

We very much hope that this rethinking, and the new investment, will address the concerns we voiced about the program’s execution back in 2009. All of these remain relevant. The pace of the civilian handover remains very slow, in part because the security situation remains very complicated. Land titling still lags. Judicial personnel needed to combat impunity are absent. Consultation with communities about development needs is partial. So is coordination between illicit crop eradication and food-security and development aid. Coordination in general remains a big challenge, especially as many of the Consolidation program’s initial managers are now gone, either transferred elsewhere or out of government, and have been replaced by new officials who may not share the same vision.

Our organizations will continue to monitor events closely, and will return to the La Macarena zone soon for meetings and a workshop with leaders from several of its rural communities. Much of what we recount here needs further verification, more detail and a wider range of views, and we look forward to obtaining those before offering final conclusions and recommendations.