Colombias Warning for MexicoByHCTOR ABADFEB. 13, 2014Continue reading the main storyShare This PageMEDELLN, Colombia Most everyone agrees: The only thing worse than killing is being killed. If our lives are threatened, we have the right to defend ourselves, with force if necessary. In a civilized society, that defense is delegated to the state. But not all of us, apparently, live in that kind of civilized society.La nica cosa peor que asesinar es ser asesinado. Si nuestras vidas estn amenazadas, tenemos el derecho de defendernos, con fuerza si es necesario. En una sociedad civilizada, esa defensa es delegada al Estado. Pero no todos nosotros, aparentemente, vivimos en ese tipo de sociedad civilizada. Los grupos de autodefensa en Colombia, estaba compuestos por agricultores entrenados por soldaos y financiados por terratenientes y empresarios. Colombia in the 1990s saw the rise of vigilante self-defense groups. In its impotence and desperation at not being able to rapidly win the war against the guerrilla army (which was essentially a drug cartel) and against the drug lord Pablo Escobars private army, the state gave the green light to these groups called Convivir. GRUPOS DE AUTODEFENSA EN COLOMBIA: AGRICULTURES ENTRENADOS POR SOLDADOS Y FINANCIADOS POR TERRATENIENTES Y EMPRESARIOS They were made up of agricultural laborers, trained by soldiers, and financed by landowners and agribusinesses. When they began to extort money from the very businessmen who were financing them, they were declared illegal. But it was already too late. They had become clandestine paramilitary groups, using the same weapons as those they were fighting: kidnapping, murder of innocents, drug trafficking.What has been going on these last few months in Mexico, in the western state of Michoacn, makes me fear that the same thing is happening there today. Autodefensas have organized to drive out the vicious local drug cartel, called the Knights Templar. After first demanding that the vigilantes disband, the government of President Enrique Pea Nieto has now sanctioned them as part of the Rural Defense Corps at least nominally under the control of the military.

Esto es lo que sucede. El ejrcito, con el beneplcito de las autoridades centrales, busca un aliado, un mal menor entre los poderes locales. En comparacin con el cruel y sanguinario Cartel de los Caballeros Templarios, los grupos de autodefensa tienen apoyo popular y se les permite operar. Aunque pareciera que el gobierno no tiene en cuenta el hecho de que algunos de estos vigilantes podran estar financiados por los enemigos del cartel de los templarios- por ejemplo, las bandas de narcotraficantes rivales u otro crtel del vecino estado de JaliscoThis is how it happens. The army, with the blessing of the central authorities, looks for an ally, a lesser evil among the local powers. Compared with the cruel and bloodthirsty Knights Templar, the self-defense groups have popular support and are allowed to operate. Meanwhile, the government ignores the fact that some of these vigilantes might be financed by the enemies of the Knights Templar for example, rival drug gangs or another cartel from the neighboring state of Jalisco. DESVENTAJA DE INSTITUCIONALIZAR O PERMITIR AUTODEFENSAS El gobierno permite a los vigilantes actuar por un tiempo, pero cuando se trate de regresar a restablecer los criterios de seguridad mnimos, los grupos de autodefensa se habr convertido en un poder armado de bienes con los que el gobierno tendr que hacer un pacto, ya que sin ellos el estado no ser capaz de hacer valer su autoridad.The government allows the vigilantes to act for a while, but when it tries to come back in, the self-defense groups will have turned into a real armed power with whom the government will have to make a pact, for without them the state wont be able to assert its authority.Mxico, al igual que varios pases de Amrica Latina, es capaz de garantizar la seguridad y el imperio de la ley, slo en ciertas zonas. El alma de la ley y el orden se las arregla para fluir cerca del corazn del poder, en torno a las grandes ciudades, pero cuanto ms lejos nos hacemos, ms dbil el pulso, y en algunos lugares no hay ninguno en absoluto. Los oficiales de polica son pocos y corruptos, jueces viven bajo la amenaza de los dspotas y dictadores locales, y las autoridades legtimas han pagado por los ilegales.Mexico, like several Latin American countries, is able to guarantee security and the rule of law only in certain zones. The lifeblood of law and order manages to flow near the heart of power, around the big cities, but the farther away we get, the weaker the pulse, and in some places there is none at all. Police officers are few and corrupt, judges live under threat from local despots and strongmen, and the legitimate authorities have been paid off by illegal ones. Its like the American Wild West, but with 21st-century armaments, private armies funded by the torrential flow of money from drug trafficking, and no prospect of a righteous sheriff riding in to restore calm.Sometimes the United States which understands itself so well, but badly misunderstands Latin American realities asks governments of its friendly southern neighbors to wage heroic battles. It asks for elimination of illicit crops, total war on drugs or extermination of guerrilla forces. The most obedient governments ignore what might be real solutions like cutting off the source of the cartels enormous wealth by legalizing drugs and instead attempt to carry out these requests. They send their national armies to undertake the thankless task of fighting against their own compatriots. Thats what Felipe Caldern, Mexicos previous president, tried.Pero estas guerras a muerte siempre fallan. Lo que generan es que los poderes locales se defienden armndose hasta los dientes, y los territorios perifricos se convierten en campos de batalla donde la vida es imposible para los civiles indefensos. La economa legal y el turismo desaparecen, el nmero de muertos se disparan (a alrededor de 80.000 en Mxico), y el ganador final, inevitablemente, no es el Estado sino algn "narcodictador" local con su propio ejrcito de mercenarios.But these wars to the death always fail. What they generate is local powers defending themselves by arming to the teeth, and outlying territories turning into battlefields where life is impossible for defenseless civilians. The legitimate economy and tourism disappear, death tolls soar (to around 80,000 in Mexico), and the final winner, inevitably, is not the state but some local narco-dictator with his own army of mercenaries.LA EXPERIENCIA COLOMBIANA: Esto es lo que hemos aprendido en Colombia: Cuando el Estado no est presente, es tiranos locales que toman el poder y brutalmente imponen sus reglas, que no son ms que la defensa de sus privilegios. El viejo concepto hobbesiano, de que el estado natural de la humanidad es que el hombre es un lobo para el hombre, parece confirmarse en estos experimentos anarquistas latinoamericanos involuntarios. El lobo ms fuerte y ms rico (de trfico de drogas o la minera ilegal) domina los otros lobos.

This is what we learned in Colombia: When the state is not present, it is local tyrants who take power and brutally impose their rules, which are nothing more than the defense of their privileges. The old Hobbesian concept, that the natural state of mankind is that man is a wolf to man, seems confirmed in these involuntary Latin American anarchist experiments. The strongest and richest wolf (from trafficking drugs or illegal mining) dominates the other wolves.Of course, every country is different. But I fear that today Mexico is making the same mistake Colombia did a quarter of a century ago. The vigilantes appear to be a cure they are seen as saviors but in reality they are part of the illness, one more illegal army, acting without restraints and financed by dirty money. LAS AUTODEFENSAS PARECEN SER UNA CURA, SON VISTOS COMO SALVADORES, PERO EN REALIDAD SON PARTE DE LA ENFERMEDAD, UN GRUPO ARMADO ILEGAL MS, ACTUANDO SIN RESTRICCIONES Y FINANCIADO POR DINERO SUCIOIn Colombia, the self-defense groups were eventually pursued until, in 2003, 25,000 of them were forced to demobilize. Since they were also drug traffickers, a few top paramilitary ringleaders ended up being extradited to the United States. But their legacy persists. Their descendants still live in Colombia and still have power: Now theyre called criminal gangs, and they are still practicing extortion and murder financed by illegal mining and drug money.The vigilantes might begin by killing kidnappers, drug dealers and extortionists, but soon they begin killing their relatives, and then their friends, or those they think are their friends, and then the friends families, until everyone is suspect and they might come knocking at your own door, as happened to us in Colombia as happened to my own father, when he was gunned down in the streets of Medelln.To allow private armies, even if they are supposedly for self-defense, is to create a monster like the Hydra: If you cut off one head, two more grow back.