[guitfiddlist]

It is only in the minds of a pin-headed socialist NGO type (read Lori Berenson) - that the paramilitaries are equated with the FARC and FALN. The latter are truly nothing but land pirates that kidnap, murder and destroy for profit. They have no sympathy from the local populace, not the man on the street, nor the typical man in the field. They've cornered the drug market and use that money to finance more mayhem. They don't build, improve or provide anything to improve the lives of Colombians, rich or poor.

The paramilitaries, on the other hand, are directly in the employ of wealthy landowners and ranchers that are fed up with the inability of the Colombian government (which spends a ridiculously low percent of GNP on the military) to at least keep the FARC at bay. And they are very effective. If you travel to Colombia - you have no worries if you travel in paramilitary country. But you're an idiot if you go into FARC country.

[Wolfie]

From AP:

A day after his landslide election on a law-and-order platform, Uribe said Monday that the drug war is "essential" because Colombia's leftist rebels and their rivals, the right-wing paramilitaries, finance their fight with the proceeds from drug trafficking.