Paramilitary forces in Colombia's conflicts: literature?

[John T. Fishel]

Bjesse, the AUC was not only formed by coffee growers and cattle ranchers but some groups were formed by the drug cartel leadership. Incidentally, there was some overlap between the cartels and coffee plantation owners and cattle ranchers, all of whic complicates the picture.

On sources such as activist human rights groups, one needs to be careful since they have specifc policy agendas which color their work. Of the Human Rights groups, I have found WOLA to be most objective in their regional coverage. On the other side, be cautious with regard to the post Jim DeMint Heritage Foundation. Prior to his taking over last year Heritage had gotten very professional. Now, on Latin America, I'm not as sure since I don't know who is running their Americas program. AEI (also on the right) has a very good professional, Steve Johnson in charge of the region. Steve was with Heritage until the Bush Admin made him Dep Asst SECDEF for Western hemisphere.

Cheers

JohnT

[Bjesse]

Bjesse, the AUC was not only formed by coffee growers and cattle ranchers but some groups were formed by the drug cartel leadership. Incidentally, there was some overlap between the cartels and coffee plantation owners and cattle ranchers, all of whic complicates the picture.

On sources such as activist human rights groups, one needs to be careful since they have specifc policy agendas which color their work. Of the Human Rights groups, I have found WOLA to be most objective in their regional coverage. On the other side, be cautious with regard to the post Jim DeMint Heritage Foundation. Prior to his taking over last year Heritage had gotten very professional. Now, on Latin America, I'm not as sure since I don't know who is running their Americas program. AEI (also on the right) has a very good professional, Steve Johnson in charge of the region. Steve was with Heritage until the Bush Admin made him Dep Asst SECDEF for Western hemisphere.

Cheers

JohnT

Thanks for the comments John. It is true that these groups are often biased, but I do not think that necessarily means all their sources are biased as well. HRW knows how to dig. I definitely do not take their view for granted, but their sources are often credible and useful.
WOLA has been a good source, thanks for that! I have also been reading stuff from the US Office on Colombia and the other suggestions you made. Its all quite useful

Since I've been reading some more general literature on the conflict in Colombia I found out that it is one of the most violent (if not the most violent) conflict in the Western hemisphere. The government seems unable to control the paramilitaries, nor the rebels. I was wondering why there has never been an military intervention/peacekeeping operation realized to keep the fighting parties apart and realizing land restitution, as a large amount of people are displaced due to paramilitary and rebels?

Maybe it's a bit naive to think like this, because I have the feeling that the Colombian government sees this conflict as purely domestic, but the situation is clearly extremely unstable. So why no peacekeeping operation?

Just a thought I had, I'm curious how you think about this.

Regards