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.
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.