In this special feature, we introduce two articles, written by two well known Colombian bloggers who also happen to be journalists, which, from different points of view will provide our readers a complete overview on what is really happening in Colombia right now, so you can make your own opinion.

The unexpected extradition of 14 important paramilitary bosses to the United States galvanized again the so-called “parapoliticians” and covers with a smoke screen the re-election fraud.

President Álvaro Uribe made the decision: send to the United States the paramilitary leadership in order to they respond for drug-trafficking related crimes to the American justice system. How does the outlook change with the presidential measure? There are several issues which may be affected with the extradition of the top United Self-defence Forces of Colombia bosses: the truth, the justice, and the redress (or reparation) to the victims, as well as the parapolitics judicial proceedings.

On Tuesday early morning, the Colombian government sent to the United States 14 demobilized United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) leaders, who were jailed in three prisons in Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Itagüí (Antioquia department, northwest), on extradition. President Álvaro Uribe administration, facing an ongoing scandal for alleged links between lawmakers (some 30 of them already in jail, including Uribe’s cousin) and top politicians who supported him with the paramilitary militias, made the decision on the grounds of them “still committing crimes and reorganizing criminal structures”

Costa Rican Foreign Ministry denied former Senator Mario Uribe Escobar, 58, cousin of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, a political asylum request, after the Colombian General Attorney’s office issued early Tuesday an arrest warrant on alleged links with paramilitary militias.

The biggest feeling that 6-M (and why not, the 4-F too) left both of us is that Colombians need more sensitivity and memory, which will not be solved with more demonstrations, despite all the respect this kind of mobilizations deserve. Again, our problem is a cultural and political one.

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Despite the invisibility of the demonstration held on 6 March 2008, with short mentions on the mass media, having been pointed out as pro-guerrilla and anti-government, in Colombia and overseas Colombians went out to the streets to remind the country that the victims of its violence exist. At least 200,000 […]

It was a march quite different from the one on 4 February. Here, it was not the anger only against one armed organization, but against all the violence which took this country over, against the lack of memory, against indifference, against impunity, against corruption, against anything which has made Colombia a worldwide example of violence.

According to Jorge 40, Carlos Castaño demanded their men to kill 1,000 of their ‘enemies’ in less than two weeks.

According to Colombia’s Justice Vice Minister, most of the COP$11 million (€4,000, US$5,800) found in Itagüí maximum security prison, along with weapons, drugs, and alcohol, belong to former United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) chief Iván Roberto Duque, best known as Ernesto Báez