Thread by @viaSimonRomero

I was based in Latin America for over a decade before moving back to the U.S. in 2017. During that time I wrote about human rights violations by paramilitary groups – called militias, in some places – in countries including Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela

This week I covered a militia calling itself the United Constitutional Patriots, operating in my own state, New Mexico: nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/…

What happens when such groups are allowed to obtain power and money and (for a time) legitimacy? Colombia offers one example. Paramilitary organizations committed some of the worst atrocities during the country’s long internal war

These crimes included kidnapping, forced displacement, torture and mass murder. I interviewed one Colombian paramilitary warlord, Salvatore Mancuso, inside his jail cell at a prison near Medellín

Mancuso transformed what were largely private armies ostensibly created to combat guerrillas into major cocaine traffickers and allies of high-ranking officials across Colombia’s government

While testifying, Mancuso sobbed while asking for forgiveness for his crimes. Mancuso has since been extradited to the U.S. & sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking

I wrote this story about my encounter with Salvatore Mancuso: nytimes.com/2007/07/28/wor…

Brazil is another country grappling with the rise of paramilitary forces. In Rio de Janeiro, these milícias (as they’re called in Portuguese) function as a criminal offshoot of the state

Composed largely of active-duty and retired police officers, prison guards and soldiers, they extort “protection” money, operate unlicensed public transportation & charge commissions on real estate deals

Rio’s militias also carry out political assassinations. I wrote about one episode in which they killed a judge, Patrícia Acioli, who was known for imprisoning corrupt police officers

Judge Acioli’s killers shot her 21 times until her body lay crumpled in the seat of her car, sending a chilling message to anyone challenging the milícias nytimes.com/2012/01/10/wor…

Undeterred, Brazil’s militias are now back in the news after former police officers were arrested in connection to the assassination of Marielle Franco, an activist and the only black woman on Rio’s City Council

Now the family of Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, have come under scrutiny for their ties to suspected militia members nytimes.com/2019/03/12/wor…

Venezuela provides another chilling example of how militias corrode rule of law. In 2007, I spent time with a pro-Chávez militia, the Colectivo Alexis Vive. They operated out of 23 de Enero, a sprawling Le Corbusier-inspired housing complex in Caracas

Murals of Jesus holding an assault rifle & Che puffing on a cigar decorated 23 de enero when I went there nytimes.com/2007/06/18/wor…

Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, has nurtured Venezuela’s colectivos since rising to power. Such groups now function as paramilitary enforcers in labor disputes with unions, student demonstrations, even in retaliation against medical researchers nytimes.com/2017/04/22/wor…

The United States, of course, has its own long history of militias. In this country, such groups are often associated with white nationalism

On the border with Mexico, the KKK formed its own “patrol” in the 70’s to deal with what David Duke called the “illegal alien problem” nytimes.com/1977/10/18/arc…

Now the U.S. is once again dealing with militias on the border. Some support these groups, calling the families from Latin America seeking asylum an “invasion.” Others abhor the militias, saying they’re operating illegally with disregard for basic human rights

Either way, tolerating militias anywhere has consequences. Up and down the Americas, examples abound of what happens when such groups take root and start to grow