Paramilitaries Likely to Continue Terrorizing Colombia Even After a Peace Deal

Paramilitaries Likely to Continue Terrorizing Colombia Even After a Peace Deal
By Meredith Hoffman
November 9, 2014 | 11:50 am

Colombia's government and guerrilla fighters are on the brink of a formal peace treaty that could end one of the longest wars on the planet, the 50-year internal conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

But those talks feel like a cruel farce to everyday Colombians like Sixta Campo, a community leader plagued by death threats from a violent paramilitary faction in Colombia that is not involved in the negotiations.

"You are considered military objectives by our organization, therefore we will kill you if within six days — listen well — six days, if you do not abandon the land of Púa," read a typed death threat letter she received from a paramilitary offshoot called "Caballeros Anti-Tierras," or the Anti-Land Knights.

The group burned her village's houses to the ground this spring, an attack that did not claim any lives. Campo built a makeshift plastic shelter to replace her torched home and then received the letter, adorned with a cartoon skull: "This land is not yours, this land already has its owners."

More:
https://news.vice.com/article/paramilitaries-likely-to-continue-terrorizing-colombia-even-after-a-peace-deal