Paramilitaries are rearming, says Salvatore Mancuso

In an interview with Terra, Mancuso blames the Uribe administration for the remilitarization, because of breaching agreements with the paramilitaries, failing to reintegrate them into Colombian society and letting the regions important for the drug trade fall in the hands of guerrillas and criminals.”Unfortunately the forces are taking up arms again, because the restoration of State powers in some regions of the country isn’t working out as it should be,” Mancuso says. He acknowledges demobilized paramilitaries are rearming again to stop leftist guerrillas from taking control of regions important to the drug trade.The former paramilitary leader, who’s currently imprisoned in Itaguí, also blames the failing reintegration programs set up by the government for the failure of the demobilization. “The reintegrated are not accepted back into society. The psychosocial work that was supposed to be done inside the communities, simply hasn’t been done,”Mancuso says.Aside that, Mancuso says, active drug gangs are murdering those demobilized that refuse to join thir criminal organization, leaving very little choice for the men and women.”We had warned about this during the peacetalks. What you see now is a complicated blend of leftist guerrillas, demobilized paramilitaries, remobilized paramilitaries working for drug gangs and common criminals all trying to regain control over the regions that are important for producing and trafficking illicit crops,” Mancuso says.In addition, Mancuso affirms the existence of an effective paramilitary force within the State.