Colombia: Paramilitaries don't want to take the blame alone

The so-called para-politics, para-institutions and para-economy in Colombia "have their place in the dock" among the accused, said eight former leaders of ultra-right armed paramilitary groups, now demobilized and charged with crimes against humanity in the nation's decades-long civil war. From prison, the eight sent a letter last week to those who were once among their potential military targets: the leaders of the center-left Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), Gustavo Petro, former presidential candidate for that party, and Iván Cepeda, congressman-elect and spokesperson for the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE). What prompted the letter was a meeting between Petro and Colombia's conservative president-elect, the former Defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, who has declared he will set up a "government of national unity."