Security & Strategic Review - May 2012 (ISSN 1741-4202)

Colombia’s ‘new paramilitary’ organisations, or Bacrims as the government calls them, have struck alliances with Mexican drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) and are fighting each other for the control of areas along the northern border with Venezuela. This development has been revealed in a recently published study, which also claims that the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), while still a threat in those regions, have been overtaken by these alliances as the main menace.