BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia — With peace talks stagnating between the government and right-wing paramilitary forces, warlords operating along the miry Magdalena River announced a gesture of goodwill: the unconditional withdrawal of hundreds of fighters from this grimy oil town and several hamlets upstream.
But the deadline, March 14, came and went with little fanfare and no visible troop movement, deepening concerns that Colombia's peace process has entered an unruly and precarious phase.
"We have to face it, nothing is going to come of it," said a paramilitary fighter who identified himself as Dubal, sitting in the stuffy front room of a cinderblock house.
On leave for a month from his unit, he said he hadn't received any order to demobilize. Nor would he obey one if it meant going to jail for paramilitary atrocities, including massacres, torture and selective killings.
"It doesn't mean you're a bad person," he said of the paramilitaries' bloody methods. "It's a job."
Conceived 16 months ago, Colombia's paramilitary peace process has stalled.
The most recent tensions stem from the outlaws' unwillingness to withdraw from strategic hubs and concentrate themselves in areas where international observers from the Organization of American States can monitor their activities.
Ongoing cease-fire violations by paramilitary fighters, meanwhile, are chipping away at credibility. By the government's count, considered conservative, the right-wing militias have killed 250 people since they declared the cease-fire in December 2002. Yet another sticking point involves U.S. extradition orders issued against top paramilitary commanders. Two of them, the stout and husky-voiced Carlos Castano and a former motocross champion named Salvatore Mancuso, are key figures in the talks.
Charged with shipping 17 tons of cocaine to the United States, they implied in a recent communique that negotiations couldn't advance while "the ghost of extradition" hung over their heads. U.S. authorities say the extradition orders are nonnegotiable.
"It's not easy. We have a lot of obstacles," said government peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, who is holding talks with four paramilitary groups. "There is distrust on the part of men who have been outside the law for a long time and who are afraid to hand in their guns and return to civil society. But we are confident we can advance."
