Paramilitary forces in Colombia's conflicts: literature?
Moderator's Note
Originally this thread was called Paramilitary forces in ME & Latin America conflicts: literature? The author, Bjesse quickly altered his focus to Colombia, so rather belatedly I have amended the title (ends).
Find works here and elsewhere by John Sullivan for Latin America.
Paramilitary forces in ME & Latin America conflicts: literature?
New member Bjesse in his first post referred to a RFI, so moved here, which often gets a high success rate:
Quote:
If there is anyone with literature suggestions on paramilitary forces in middle-eastern/latin-american conflicts please let me know. I've been reading several books (like proxy warriors and the CIA paramilitary stories in Afghanistan) and several articles but any advice is more than welcome.
Paramilitaries and para militaries and...
The term paramilitary (and paramilitaries) covers a multitude of sins. First, all police forces but especially those with a SWAT capability are paramilitaries. In fact, the term was created to refer to forces like the French Gendarmerie and Italian Carbinieri.Second, the term refers to forces created by or sanctioned by the government, typically militias such as were the mainstay of the US military until the civil war. Good, relatively modern examples fro Latin America are theRondas Campesinas in Peru, the Defensa Civil in el Salvador, and the PACs in guatemala. A less benign variant is a paramilitary like ORDEN in pre-1979 el Salvador and similarly the Turbas Divinas in Sandinista Nicaragua. Finally, we come to groups like the AUC in Colombia whch were neither created by nor officially sanctioned by the government although they did often cooperate with the CO Army against the FARC.
My understanding of the demobilization of the AUC is that it was largely successful with respect to those paramilitaries that accepted the leadership of the AUC. However, a number of the "member" groups did not accept the authority of the AUC leadership and refused to disband, although, again, my understanding is that it was a minority within the AUC. Please note my qualified language in this paragraph as i am less sure of its accuracy compared to my first paragraph.
Cheers
JohnT