US embassy cable - 04BOGOTA12945

UNCLAS BOGOTA 012945 
 
SIPDIS 
 
TAGS: PTER, PINR, PHUM, KJUS, CO, OAS, AUC 
SUBJECT:  Guarded Optimism at First Year Anniversary of 
BCN Demobilization 
 
REF:  BOGOTA 12188 
 
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"It's Working"-First Year Anniversary of BCN 
Demobilization 
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1. Just hours after the November 25 demobilization of 
AUC's Bananero Bloc combatants in Turbo, Antioquia 
Department (reftel), the first anniversary of the 
demobilization of the Cacique Nutibara Bloc (BCN) was 
celebrated in the department capital of Medellin.  With 
banners emblazoned with the slogan "After a Year - it's 
Working", the cavernous Medellin convention hall filled 
with an audience of over 1000, including former BCN 
combatants and their families, public officials, civil 
society leaders, and representatives of foreign missions. 
 
2. In a keynote speech, former BCN commander Diego 
Murrillo, one of the AUC's principal negotiators in talks 
with the GOC, described the difficult road traveled in 
the ongoing peace process.  He told the crowd that former 
and current AUC combatants can "see a light of hope at 
the end of the tunnel that will bring us to join our 
families, reconcile with society, and search for 
political space.... From a position of legality [we will] 
contribute to the building of roads towards often 
mentioned but never well understood social justice." 
 
3. Murillo accused critics of the peace process of 
refusing to accept the mechanisms of pardon and 
reconciliation. He was critical of their purported "wish 
to apply humanitarian fundamentalism," characterizing 
them as "trapped in offices in Europe.."  He said they 
"fail to understand, not even with a glance, the dramatic 
realities of Colombia.  A process of peace that does 'not 
have as a fundamental direction pardon and reconciliation 
is' not viable."  Departing from his written remarks, he 
asked the GOC to be generous in its handling of the 
movement's leaders' legal status. 
 
4. In his public remarks, Mayor of Medellin Sergio 
Fajardo admitted that a year earlier he had serious 
doubts about prospects for success of the AUC 
demobilization process.  However, as a close observer of 
the process over the past year, he had become a believer. 
Linking the demobilization to reduced levels of violence, 
he noted that murders in the city had fallen by over 60% 
from the previous year.  Yet he reminded the gathering 
that the problems of Medellin and Antioquia will not be 
solved only by demobilizing former combatants, but by 
dealing successfully with other forms of violence and 
offering Medellin's youth educational and employment 
opportunities that discourage them from joining criminal 
gangs or engaging in other types of crime. 
 
5. The mood after the ceremony was genuinely positive, 
almost festive.  Embassy officials spoke with several 
demobilized fighters, all of whom said they were happy to 
have returned to their families and reintegrated into 
society and "legality." Although they recognized that the 
road ahead is not easy, they emphasized that it is 
nevertheless better than the one left behind.