Colombia's largest paramilitary group - the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) - has confirmed that it will demobilise its forces, but there are serious concerns in Bogotá about the financial implications of implementing the breakthrough agreement.
Nine paramilitary leaders agreed on 15 July to disband their brigades by December 2005, provided that the government meets certain conditions. In particular, they want the armed forces to guarantee their security and to protect the communities where their bases are located from reprisal attacks by leftist guerrillas.
The majority of AUC forces will begin disarming later this year, although those in militarily sensitive areas will remain in place for longer. The disarmed paramilitaries will then congregate in Urabá, Córdoba and some districts of Medellín under the protection of the Colombian army.
The office of the commissioner for peace estimates that it will cost a minimum of US$16,000 per person to fund reintegration schemes in these areas for two years. This adds up to a total of US$208m, if all the estimated 13,000 AUC members are to be successfully reintegrated.
Scant resources. Peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo has already warned that 'the government's resources for this task are tiny.' And another 6,000 men belonging to the Bloque Central Bolívar and the Alianza Oriente are also pursuing parallel talks and could soon agree to be reintegrated.
At the same time, the armed forces will need to establish a presence in areas currently under AUC control to ensure territory does not simply pass into the hands of the leftist Farc and ELN.
The defence ministry calculates it will need three soldiers to replace every paramilitary who demobilises -equivalent to up to 40,000 extra troops- on the grounds that the AUC's guerrilla campaigns require much fewer men.
The authorities will now ask the international community to make up the deficit, but the situation is complicated by the AUC's strong links to drug trafficking and its appalling human rights record.
Foreign finance? The US -by far Colombia's major donor thanks to the 'Plan Colombia' agreement- has already promised an extra US$2-3m per year, but US officials have warned it will be difficult for them to support any scheme that could offer the paramilitaries immunity.
Indeed, the US still hopes to extradite the AUC's leaders, Carlos Castaño and Salvatore Mancuso, to face charges relating to cocaine smuggling.
Potential donors such as the EU are also reluctant to provide funds to benefit the AUC when many paramilitaries are believed to have made fortunes from drug trafficking.
Castaño upbeat. Although the financial resources may still be lacking, Carlos Castaño, seems to have no doubts that the process will prove a success. He has said he will take personal command of the 5,000 men expected to congregate in Urabá within the next few months. The paramilitary leader has become an enthusiastic advocate of peace in recent months, although analysts suggest he may be primarily hoping to thereby avoid prosecution and extradition.
'The self-defence movement has reached its end. The demobilisation of the whole of the AUC is irreversible,' he said recently.
The Colombian government is equally desperate for the new agreement to prove a success. It represents the first real breakthrough in the peace process under President Alvaro Uribe, and could encourage the ELN to negotiate a similar deal. But if financial shortfalls undermine the reintegration process, the prospect of 13,000 trained paramilitaries drifting back into working for the drugs cartels is a worrying prospect for the Colombian government and for the rest of the world.
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