blocks. In Córdoba, the paramilitary Bloque Catatumbo
was led by Salvatore Mancuso. As its power continued to
grow, the AUC made a strategic decision to get involved in
politics. Paramilitaries and politicians courted each other.
Several of the leaders of the AUC organized a meeting with
prominent politicians in the town of Santa Fé de Ralito in
Córdoba. A joint document, a pact, calling for the
“refounding of the country” was issued and signed by
leading members of the AUC, such as “Jorge 40” (the
nickname for Rodrigo Tovar Pupo), Adolfo Paz (a nom de
guerre for Diego Fernando “Don Berna” Murillo), and
Diego Vecino (real name: Edwar Cobo Téllez), along with
politicians, including national senators William Montes and
Miguel de la Espriella. By this point the AUC was running
large tracts of Colombia, and it was easy for them to fix
who got elected in the 2002 elections for the Congress and
Senate. For example, in the municipality of San Onofre, in
Sucre, the election was arranged by the paramilitary leader
Cadena (“chain”). One eyewitness described what
happened as follows:
The trucks sent by Cadena went around the
neighborhoods, corregimientos and rural
areas of San Onofre picking people up.
According to some inhabitants … for the
2002 elections hundreds of peasants were
taken to the corregimiento Plan Parejo so
they could see the faces of the candidates
they had to vote for in the parliamentarian
elections: Jairo Merlano for Senate and
Muriel Benito Rebollo for Congress.
Cadena put in a bag the names of the
members of the municipal council, took out
two and said that he would kill them and other
people chosen randomly if Muriel did not win.
The threat seems to have worked: each candidate
obtained forty thousand votes in the whole of Sucre. It is no
surprise that the mayor of San Onofre signed the pact of
Santa Fé de Ralito. Probably one-third of the congressmen
and senators owed their election in 2002 to paramilitary
support, and Map 20, which depicts the areas of Colombia