COLOMBIA Paramilitaries Don't Want to Take the Blame Alone http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52115

The so-called para-politics, para-institutions and para-economy in Colombia "have their place in the dock" among the accused, said eight former leaders of ultra-right armed paramilitary groups, now demobilised and charged with crimes against humanity in the nation's decades-long civil war.They write that their demobilisation and disarmament, and "the half truth and half justice," will be "worth nothing" if those who "personify" the paramilitary phenomenon remain invisible in political and economic power, "evading, at any price," their responsibility.

"Land speculation, seizure and concentration of agricultural property, violence and displacement in the countryside, and the consequent social injustice against the rural people, entail and involve situations still unknown," they state. The men point out that the "small number of two dozen former commanders" of the paramilitary forces cannot be the "shadow owners" of the at least four million hectares "of highest commercial value" today in the hands of the mafia. They add that the land should be returned to the displaced persons.

The former leaders underscore that the people deployed in paramilitarism include "politicians, The incoming Treasury Minister, Juan Camilo Restrepo, notorious critic of the current government of Álvaro Uribe, announced an "agrarian reform" to benefit the displaced Colombians.

According to different sources, from four to 10 million hectares were violently taken over in the context of the civil war The government has seized some two million hectares from drug trafficking cartels, but distribution to the displaced rural families has been nearly impossible due to the "winding paths of justice," as Restrepo describes it. This being the case, agrarian reform will have to begin on paper,business leaders, high-level officials, large contractors , foreign investors and members of the public security forces," who should be brought to justice as well.