Troops have been granted immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity over the next seven years, reports Michael McCaughan
A hooded informer receives a wad of banknotes from a military commander while civilian authorities observe quietly in the background. It would be difficult to find a more appropriate image to represent Colombia's alarming slide toward dictatorial rule, a process which has accelerated rapidly since President Alvaro Uribe assumed office in August.
Mr Uribe has gambled his presidential mandate on a high-risk pledge to defeat armed insurgents by military means, combining a professional army with an auxiliary force of one million informers. All over Colombia a new welfare system has been established - Monday Rewards - in which a minimum salary is paid to any citizen supplying useful information about terrorist activities.
The recipe was tried before but abandoned due to concerns about human rights and a constitutional challenge. Critics claimed the informer system was used to settle old scores and led villagers to distrust one another, thus undermining community cohesion.
All such concerns were swept away in the past two months as President Uribe suspended constitutional rights and transferred power from elected civilians to military commanders in conflict zones. The Colombian constitution prohibits the declaration of a state of emergency - no obstacle to the new president, who simply redefined the measure as a "state of internal commotion". The justice system has rowed in behind Mr Uribe, offering financial incentives to witnesses to secure convictions against rebel suspects.
It is into this political climate that three Irish men charged with terror offences will step inside a Colombian courtroom today. President Uribe will be hoping for a conviction as the indictment of international terror suspects would retroactively justify the cancellation of the peace process.
Colombia's justice system has traditionally served the political needs of the government of the day, a factor which will undoubtedly influence the outcome of events. In addition, Colombia's attorney general, Mr Luis Camilo Osorio, has dropped investigations of abuses by army officers, a clear signal that his priorities lie in convicting rebel suspects rather than pursuing a balanced judicial agenda.
President Uribe enjoys substantial support for the measures as Colombians are fed up with chronic insecurity and rural violence. Colombian rebels have lost popular support, relying largely on intimidation and kidnapping to increase their influence. However, opinion polls repeatedly suggest that Colombians favour dialogue over war, while Mr Uribe's electoral advantage must be seen in the light of record abstention as just one in four eligible citizens voted for him.
Mr Uribe enjoys total support in the one place it matters, the White House. President Uribe has hitched his own war on terror wagon to the US, riding the tide to crush a threat to state security.
In an intriguing development, Colombia's right-wing paramilitary leader Carlos Castano has fallen in love with the US justice system and wants to turn himself over for extradition and possible trial. Colombia's paramilitary armies, closely linked to the armed forces, have butchered entire villages, applying chainsaws and other methods of persuasion on anyone considered insufficiently active in the counter-insurgency struggle.
The timing of Mr Castano's announcement was perfect, coming as Mr Uribe visited the US to seek backing for his increasingly dictatorial regime. Colombian authorities have tried to portray social violence as a battle between two extremes, left and right, with the army a beleaguered arbiter stuck between them.
Mr Castano has always maintained that the paramilitaries would disappear as soon as the Colombian army undertook its responsibility to defeat subversion. That day has arrived. President Uribe has paved the way by granting immunity from prosecution to visiting US troops and state security forces for all crimes against humanity committed over the next seven years.
The military authorities have the right to impose curfews, search homes without a warrant and even oblige families to leave their homes and move elsewhere.
Rehabilitation Zones will eventually mirror the Guatemalan Development Poles, where indigenous citizens in areas of conflict were forced to live inside army-controlled reservations.
In a report published last week, local authorities in Saravena town, close to the Venezuelan border, acknowledged that 80 per cent of local school children graduate into the guerrillas or the coca business. It is assumed that the graduates act out of necessity rather than ideological conviction, pointing to the crux of the matter. In this context, the trial of the three Irish men is a sideshow to a far more important event, which is the social disintegration of an entire nation.
Colombia needs productive investment to assist farmers, educate children and crush the original roots of rebel recruitment: social exclusion. Instead they will get a further $500 million from the US next year, to wage a war.