Colombian paramilitary head confesses

"What's interesting here is that he is talking about the active participation of high-level members of the armed forces," says Gustavo Gallón, head of the Colombian Commission of Jurists. "It's not that we didn't know this, but it's important that he is saying it. There is a lot to be explored here," he says.

Mancuso on Tuesday said his paramilitary group had a budget of about $450,000 a month to pay off the police and military officers in the area he controlled. [Editor's Note: The original version misstated the monthly budget Mancuso said his group received.]

Colombia's paramilitary groups were originally formed by wealthy cattle ranchers in the 1980s to fight off extortion and kidnapping by leftist guerrillas. They later turned into powerful armies and became heavily involved in drug trafficking and extortion themselves, using used murder and intimidation to rule huge swaths of the country.

"I was the state and I controlled everything," Mr. Lopera of Redepaz recalled Mancuso as declaring in his deposition about the area under his influence.

Mancuso detailed – almost boastfully according to victims' advocates – how the paramilitaries infiltrated every level of government and every state agency, and co-opted regional politics.

He presented to the prosecutor taking his deposition a political pact signed by about 40 politicians and paramilitary leaders on Colombia's northern coast in 2001.

The existence of the pact had been revealed by a senator in November, but the full list of signers had not been revealed.

The extent to which politicians and paramilitaries worked together exploded into a major scandal late last year when the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of three current lawmakers for alleged collusion with death squad leaders.

Six other lawmakers are currently being investigated. Mancuso has said he could reveal the names of other politicians that worked together with them.

But Areiza cares little for the political intrigue. She plans to stay in Medellin to listen to Mancuso as he continues his testimony this week, hoping to see some sign of contrition from the man who arranged the murder of her father.

She and other victims are expecting Mancuso to detail how he and his men took over the farmland of their victims and to map out how he will return the properties to their legal owners.

But victims could have a long wait ahead before they see any reparations. In a subsequent stage of the special judicial process, a judge will decide how much each paramilitary must pay to each victim, depending on the number of victims, from both legal and illegally gained assets.

"But no matter what we hear or what sort of reparations they give us, they are not going to give us our loved ones back, and they are not going to take away the pain," Areiza said.

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