But words are not enough. Paramilitary activity has increased and these groups, often working with the tolerance or support of the Colombian military, are considered responsible for nearly 80 percent of all human rights violations last year in Colombia. A record ten human rights defenders were killed in 2000. Even as eyewitnesses, municipal officials, and even the government's own investigators deliver current information about the location of paramilitary bases, license plates, colors and types of vehicles, cellular telephones numbers, and even the names of paramilitaries, the government's response is usually only a letter acknowledging receipt.
Military troops arrive after paramilitaries have gone, and register bodies and damages.
Indeed, high ranking officers against whom there is credible evidence of ties to paramilitary groups not only remain in command, but have been promoted. These cases are not the exception, but the rule. In only the first seventeen days of 2001, the Colombian government recorded twenty-three massacres. The worst took place in Chengue, Sucre. An estimated fifty paramilitaries pulled men from their homes and killed them by crushing their heads with heavy stones and a sledgehammer.