Word: colombia
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Since then, Castano, who wears camouflage fatigues and moves with the predatory restlessness of a jungle cat, has been stalking the two chief rebel groups: the 16,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller but no less virulent National Liberation Army (ELN), which has 5,000 fighters. His AUC members, who look as though they were outfitted from the back pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine, number 8,000. They operate in 25% of Colombian territory, mainly in the north, along the Venezuelan border and in the central Magdalena River valley. But in the past month...
...handful of press interviews and refused until recently to have his face photographed. Catching up to him involved two plane flights, a muddy drive through banana plantations and finally a speedboat ride through a thunderstorm across the Gulf of Uruba to the Darien Gap, the mountainous rain forest separating Colombia from Panama. Castano was waiting on the beach, surrounded by 30 hulking paramilitaries hidden among giant ceiba trees...
...conversation with him was like an encounter with Mr. Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. This man who is responsible for so much of Colombia's barbarity possesses a glittering, dangerous lucidity. After seeing Castano on TV last August, wearing a casual white sweater instead of his usual combat gear and talking with great charm and simple logic, many Colombians began to think that in a twisted way his war makes sense. "The art of the guerrillas is to hide themselves among the civilians. That may give them immunity against the army and police but not against us," Castano...
Castano is a backer of Plan Colombia--in which the U.S. is funding a $1.3 billion drug-eradication program--even though most of the AUC's funds come from shaking down drug traffickers. "I prefer taking cash from the narcos than from honest people," says Castano, who explains that his group, like the rebels, collects a "tax" on coca paste and on the drug's transportation in AUC-controlled areas. Castano has given orders not to shoot at the government crop-spraying aircraft when they swoop over coca fields in his areas...
...though Castano once worked for the drug dealers as an enforcer, he says he's eager to see the end of Colombia's drug economy. "I know it's strange for me to say, but narcotics is a worse problem than the guerrillas. When guerrillas fought for social ideals, we all liked them, but when they got involved with the narcos, they lost their bearings, their popularity. They hit the middle class, the small farmers, and that's why we rose...