The AUC’s structural connection to coca

“polarization of civil war proportions between the oligarchy and military, on one side, and the guerrilla and the peasantry, on the other” has been established (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 122). Such tactics are explicitly designed to combat revolutionary objectives. As expressed in Chapter 2, it can only be with the people that the FARC-EP can generate emancipatory and transformative action, hence the real war that is taking place in Colombia is not against drugs, but against the consequential threat of the people implementing a socialist revolution from below. Contrary to popular reports, the result of class reactionism has been an increase in the FARC-EP’s numbers and support base in many locales. Without protection peasants have understood all too well the realities of extermination, thus the guerrillas have proven to be “the only ones left who can protect the campesinos” (Braun, 2003: 68; see also FARC-EP, 2002b: 28–9; 2001–02: 5, 14). This being the case populations periodically flock to, or remain in, FARCEP-held territory. Inadvertently, broad numbers of people become involved in reflecting/conversing about social conditions, political circumstance, the history of US interference in Latin America, and the overall situation of their country. Such conditions arguably foster an environment of “heightened anti-imperialist consciousness,” leading segments to unify with the FARC-EP (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 179). This goes to the heart of class analysis and the contemporary geopolitical relevance of Marxism. Because of Washington’s fear of a Marxist insurgency actually taking power55 – coupled with the possibility of it happening – the very structure of imperialism may be threatened. A third consequence has been the rapid increase in coca growing. Several years after NSDD 221, Washington alleged coca levels had decreased as a result of their involvement. To their embarrassment and discredit, external findings revealed that cocaine productivity was 2.5 times higher than previously speculated (Scott, 2003: 83n.35). None of this is surprising in light of the fact that the AUC was now deriving four-fifths of its income from trafficking, and had control of just under half of all narcotics activity in the country (Richani, 2007: 409; 2005b: 102n.77; 2002a: 108–9; Scott, 2003: 39).

THE AUC’S STRUCTURAL CONNECTION TO COCA

Since the implementation of NSDD 221, a considerable rise in coca cultivation has shadowed the comparative growth of paramilitarism (Avila et al, 1997). The most significant jumps took place during US/Colombian counternarcotic and counterinsurgency campaigns alongside the formal inception of the AUC, around 1997 (see Figure 6.2). As Washington and Bogotá increasingly focused on defeating the FARC-EP, they simultaneously provided leeway for the AUC to expand its economic and militaristic activities. This cost–benefit approach has been regularly shown in US foreign policy, whereby one set of actors are targeted while others enrich themselves provided their activities benefit the United States in some form, political or otherwise (Peceny and Durnan, 2006: 96, 112).56

A more telling sign of the AUC’s involvement in the drugs trade was the considerable freeze in coca cultivation coupled by the increase of proclaimed AUC members at the beginning of the formal demobilization negotiations with the Uribe administration in 2003. The state agreed to negotiate with the AUC in July 2003, and stated that an amnesty for AUC combatants would be considered, coupled with protection of all property and assets members had acquired over the past decade (FENSUAGRO, 2005; Ramírez Lemus, Stanton and Walsh, 2005: 134; Simons, 2004: 331; Dudley, 2004: 206–7). By 2005, this was passed into law via Law 975 (Goffman, 2005; NACLA, 2003). The so-called “Peace and Justice Law” sought

the demobilization of up to 20,000 members of the rightwing paramilitary group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), while granting its leaders broad concessions. Under the legislation, AUC commanders will receive sentences as short as 22 months and at most eight years, with the possibility of serving the time on private farms instead of in state-run prisons. A “double jeopardy” provision also makes extradition to the United States unlikely. In addition, the legislation does not require AUC commanders to dismantle the group’s organizational infrastructure, nor to give up any profits they have made from drug trafficking, kidnappings or other criminal activities.

(Goffman, 2005: 50)

At the passing of Law 975, Colombian congresswoman Gina María Parody d’Echeona criticized the legislation as it paradoxically gave “benefits to people who have committed the worst crimes” (Goffman, 2005: 50–1). Furthermore, traffickers, once connected with the paramilitaries, were able to manipulate the legislation by “acquiring” official AUC member status, thus enabling them to cleanse all assets obtained during their years in the narcotics industry (that is, production, smuggling, trafficking, and so on) while going virtually unpunished for any crimes committed (Goffman, 2005: 50–1; Forero, 2004). By the summer of 2006, Jorge Daniel Castro, then general director of Colombia’s national police, announced that about 31,000 paramilitaries had claimed amnesty via Law 975 (see Badawy, 2006). This skyrocketing figure was almost double any estimate by scholars, military analysts, or governments officials of the size of the AUC (International Crisis Group, 2004: 2, 2n.7; Murillo and Avirama, 2004: 89, 108; Livingstone, 2003: 269n.15; Crandall, 2002: 88; Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, 2000: 10). Political and security analyst Vanda Felbab-Brown (2005: 113) suggested that numerous drug traffickers “bought themselves leadership positions in the AUC to take advantage of AUC peace negotiations with the Colombian government and avoid extradition under the resulting lenient treatment of the paramilitaries.” Trying to add legitimacy to the negotiations with Uribe, the AUC and narcobourgeoisie quashed coca cultivation, processing, and distribution during the early stages of the demobilization process, making it appear as though the organization was sincere in disbanding. According to Holmes and colleagues