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supported the MAS by way of force or profits derived from transactions connected to the narcotic industry and protection rents (Livingstone, 2003: 221). By the 1990s, the MAS and the ACCU were individually providing intelligence information to state forces while conducting operations against suspected guerrilla supporters. Through their mutual relations with the Colombian military, the ACCU and MAS forces soon began coordinating “major counterinsurgency against the guerrillas” (Richani, 2000: 38–9). This relationship continued into the mid-1990s until the principal architect of the ACCU, Fidel Castaño, was murdered in 1994 and his younger brother assumed leadership of the paramilitary organization. This caused things to change concerning the two paramilitary forces. Unlike his brother Fidel, noted for relishing the spoils of power, Carlos moved away from a pure desire to establish himself as a wealthy capitalist or right-wing populist and specifically concentrated his activities toward eliminating the FARC-EP (Rojas, 2005: 227; Dudley, 2004: 144–51). For the next few years, he worked tirelessly to unify the two regionally based paramilitary forces into one distinct national organization (Livingstone, 2003: 220; see also Leech, 2002a: 23; Richani, 2000: 39). With the ACCU and MAS already having a working history, coupled with their co-aligned ideology and economic interests, a successful consolidation of the two took place in the late 1990s. In April 1997, Carlos Castaño succeeded in expanding operations from a regionalized level to a national scale, and announced the AUC to be a national paramilitary association (Pearce, 2007: 263n.11; Leech, 2002a: 23).26 THE AUC: AN APPENDAGE OF COLOMBIAN FASCISM The AUC is the most recognized paramilitary organization in Colombian history.27 Known for its ruthlessness, the organization initiated itself by carrying out the greatest array of violent massacres in Colombia’s recent memory (Richani, 2002a: 93–132). Between 1997 and 2000, it allegedly conducted over 1,145 massacres (International Crisis Group, 2003a: 33). As if making a concession, Carlos Castaño agreed that after 1999, the AUC would only involve itself in massacres of no more than three persons at any one time (Holmes, 2003: 91). Yet the AUC cannot be thought of as an independent reactionary armed force simply supporting Colombia’s far right. Rather, the AUC is a segment of a complicated and important history, a past which holds relevance in the context of today’s civil war throughout the countryside and, in many respects, explains why the violence continues to rage. Organizationally, the AUC can be thought of as an umbrella organization linking tens of thousands of armed combatants from various paramilitary groups under one principal leadership comprised of “a joint operational staff, and regional and local field units” (Kruijt and Koonings, 2004: 29; see also Livingstone, 2003: 219–20). The founding Carlos Castaño acted as leader of the AUC from 1997 to 2001/02, at which time his second in command and militant hardliner Salvatore Mancuso became the paramilitary’s commander
