Fearing an escape attempt, the Colombian government transferred 59 paramilitary leaders from their detention center at a former holiday camp and brought them to trial. The warlords first appeared in court on December 14-15, in Barranquilla and in Medellin. On December 1st, these 'paras' had frantically phoned radio stations to tell of a massive build up of troops and helicopters circling the detention center where they were being held. Hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers forcibly moved them from their comfortable center in La Ceja to the Itagui maximum security prison in Medellin. One week later, they broke off talks with the government. On November 15, a few journalists were allowed to visit the 'paras' in La Ceja. Among them was a correspondent with IJT. When the Colombian government announced in early 2006 that the paramilitary leaders would be housed in the La Ceja camp as they awaited their trials as part of a peace process, many in this country saw it as yet more evidence that the accord was too lenient. Created in the 1980s by drugtraffickers and landowners to act as an illegal militia to combat Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paramilitary militia quickly grew with the help of people in the military and in political and business circles. As the group, known by its acronym AUC, expanded across the country, it committed some of the worst crimes in a brutal civil war that has killed more than 40,000 Colombians, mostly civilians, since 1964.

In 2003 the AUC agreed to sign a peace accord with President Alvaro Uribe. Under the terms of the accord which resulted in the AUC disbanding more than a dozen blocs and demobilizing some 31,000 fighters, the leaders will serve no more than eight years as long as they tell the whole truth and admit all their crimes [IJT-48]. When negotiations between the government and the paramilitaries started, one of the leaders of the 'paras', Diego Murillo, better known as Don Berna or Adolfo Paz, had stated confidently that he and the other leaders would never "spend a day in prison". Three years later, dozens of them were in detention in La Ceja, some 40 minutes outside of Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city.

Surrounded by green mountains at 2,200 meters above sea-level and with an average temperature of 16 °C year round, the small village of La Ceja is in one of the temperate zones prefered by Colombians seeking to escape the searing heat of much of the country. The detention center, chosen by the paramilitaries and the government during the negotiations, was formerly a holiday camp for government employees.
Security was heavy around the facility, with various road blocks set up on all the roads leading to the camp's gates. But unlike other prisons, the guards here are protecting the inmates from outsiders and outsiders from the inmates. After rampant speculation in the Colombian media about the conditions inside the La Ceja center, authorities allowed a group of journalists to enter the camp on November 15 and see for themselves the warlords' new home. The paramilitaries were anxious to show that they truly were repaying their debt to society. Diego Vecino, a leading paramilitary from the Caribbean coast, said: "We are here to serve out our time as part of this process. There are those who criticize the peace process saying it's too soft, but that's not the truth. We are here behind bars." They also wanted to show that they remain committed to peace, helpfully pointed out by a dozen commanders wearing identical white T-shirts with the words 'We want peace'. The authorities were equally keen to show Colombians that La Ceja is a secure facility and not the luxurious prison drug-trafficker Pablo Escobar negotiated for himself in the early 1990s which made a mockery of the government's claim to have imprisoned him.

Neither prison nor palace

The four-story building in La Ceja, with a total of 178 rooms, sits in the middle of a 108,000 m2 plot of land. While it is not that luxurious, it is also not a strict prison. The prisoners have free run of the grounds, with no locks on the doors. Their days are divided up into work and classes. One hour is set aside each day for "spiritual relaxation". Their rooms are clearly not like those of a standard prison.

In Salvatore Mancuso's typical room, there is his own personal television and a bookcase stocked with books, revealing a wide range of interests, from the history of the Italian mafia, to the role of the United States in the Colombian conflict, to a book on "Learning to meditate" and the latest novel by Dan Brown. Out on the center's grounds, Mancuso, one-time leader of the AUC, dug up dirt as he prepared to plant gladiolas. "I've always been of the country. I was a farmer when the guerillas and the war pulled me from [the] bosom of my heart, when we had to take up our own defense,'' he said, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. Like other commanders, he said that all those involved in the civil war should reveal their role in the conflict. "We are committed to tell everything,'' he continued. "We went from talking about peace to action, to where we are now working in jail with a stick in our hand," he said with the suaveness of a practiced politician. He added that the paramilitaries are still waiting for guarantees from the government that they won't be extradited to the U.S. Like many other commanders, Mancuso is wanted in the U.S. on charges of trafficking tons of cocaine. While the government has pledged to suspend extraditions, the paramilitaries want them to be banned. "Extradition is an enormous problem for these negotiations. One way or another, we must clarify this and get some guarantees," said Mancuso.

A tour of the center seemed like a villains' gallery of Colombia's savage and brutal underworld. In one room, stood the huge frame of Francisco Javier Zuluago, more commonly known as "Gordo Lindo" ("Sweet Fatboy"), a name he apparently picked up after his habit of buying every girlfriend, no matter how short the relationship, a brand new car. Now, wrapped around his enormous chest was a T-shirt which said: "I am a pacifist."

One of the crucial aspects of the three-year old peace process with the far-right paramilitaries is that all demobilized fighters be trained in something other than killing, and be given a vocation that will help them reintegrate into Colombian society. In La Ceja, the former warlords took courses in carpentry, flower gardening, animal husbandry and fish farming. In the carpentry workshop, Monoleche, whose real name is Jesus Ignacio Roldan, happily sawed through a piece of wood as he constructed a night stand. After a long career in the paramilitary group, he emerged from the shadows earlier this year when he was accused of personally killing the former paramilitary leader, Carlos Castano, one of the founders of AUC, allegedly on the orders of Castano's older brother, Vicente. Apparently, the reason was that Vicente worried that Carlos' negotiations with the U.S. to give himself up, would jeopardize the AUC's cocaine trafficking routes. Vicente is still on the run, part of a group of renegade paramilitaries who refused to turn themselves in.

Upstairs, in his room, shivered Ramon Izaza, referred to as the grandfather of the paramilitary movement. Suffering from Parkinson's disease and now elderly, he spends most of his time in his room, with the heat turned up full blast and wearing gloves. "When there's sun, I go out and work in the field, but mainly with the pain I'm in, I stay here,'' he croaked. Like many other paramilitaries, an open bible lay next to his bed. Ernesto Baez, who has served as the spokesman for the paramilitaries and who became the target of satirists' for his long rants, taught the other commanders classes in law, his profession before entering the AUC. Even though according to him morale remained high amongst the paramilitaries, he said "the loss of liberty is a tragedy for any person."

"Let's talk about who was involved!"

Out on the grounds worked "Jorge 40", whose real name is Rodrigo Tovar and who emerged in recent years to be one of the most powerful men in Colombia, running an extensive network of fighters, drug-traffickers, bought-off politicians and members of the security forces. "Let's talk about the history of the violence in Colombia, and let's talk about who was involved, no more smoke screens,'' he warned. He worried about the government's ability to control the territory the paramilitaries had given up, including areas he once controlled himself. "The government has the intention, but still lacks coordination", he said.

In the carpentry workshop, the diminutive Hernan Giraldo, was dressed in his trademark peasant's hat. When in charge of a ruthless bloc of paramilitary fighters, Giraldo spread fear among much of UK Colombia, auc, farc, uribe, paramilitary Holiday's over for the Colombian 'paras' TAGs: ------------------------------------------------------------------------Begin content------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3636 Colombia's jungle in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, exporting dozens of tons of cocaine a year and killing any opponents, in particular those in the indigenous communities who live there. As he cut through wood, he said that the paramilitaries had all complied with their obligations under the peace accord, but remained unsure about the government. "We don't know until we are tried. We have complied with every aspect, if we hadn't we would still be in the mountains,'' he said. He also understood that some new groups have sprung up since the demobilization. Critics of the process have said that as the AUC's blocs demobilized, as many as 60 new paramilitary groups have appeared, operating in the same zones where the AUC demobilized. For those critics, this demonstrates that while blocs have demobilized, the paramilitary structure remains intact. "It's possible that there are new groups but we who demobilized are not with them,'' Giraldo said.

On December 1st the government moved all these men from La Ceja to the real Itagui prison, alleging a possible escape plot by the militia warlords. Two days earlier, Uribe had accused the paramilitaries of ordering assassinations from the center. And so ended the warlords' stay in the former holiday camp.