Mr. Uribe’s Send-Off Posted on May 15th
WHEN COLOMBIA’S democratically elected Congress approved a plan by President Álvaro Uribe in 2005 to demobilize right-wing paramilitary groups and bring their top leaders to justice, human rights groups and some congressional Democrats in the United States declared themselves outraged. Though the paramilitaries were a principal source of the violence and drug-trafficking that have plagued Colombia for decades — and the demobilization of tens of thousands of lawless gunmen could be a breakthrough in the effort to restore order — the American critics said Mr. Uribe was extending overly generous terms to the top leaders. In a 2006 letter to Mr. Uribe, Human Rights Watch said its No. 1 objection to the plan was that it “could allow paramilitary commanders to avoid spending any time in prison.”
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