They killed two dozen people, chopped off their heads, and forced the rest of the town to watch in horror as they played soccer with the victims' heads. The Colombian Army and paramilitaries force indigenous peoples and peasants off lands where foreign companies want to invest. BBC has reported that the military displaces people before British Petroleum-Amoco goes into a new area. Occidental Oil has Army thugs trying to push U'Wa Indians off their sacred lands. Paramilitaries have been known to clear peasants off their lands to make room for airstrips for drug trafficking.
Labor unions are the frequent targets of paramilitary threats and attacks.
Army and police are called out to squash labor actions. During an August 3rd general strike, Colombian riot police and tanks patrolled the capital city of Bogot . In four other cities, police fired water cannons and tear gas. One worker in the southwestern city of Cali suffered a bullet wound. This is typical of military and police repression of union actions.