pos;s plan to abandon coca cultivation in exchange for retraining assistance was exchanged for building infrastructure.
             Sweig claims the lack of a state system was planned on the part of the ruling class to limit the reach of the army and police as they took over small farmers' land to make coffee for exports. The "ancestors of modern paramilitaries" were their muscle; their brutal methods employed by today's paramilitaries. Supported by the army, today's AUC is stronger, Sweig claims- able to protect drug lords, landowners and the poor probably with the help of three new qualities, defined by Nazzi as: a unified structure operating at the national level, a clear political agenda with a defined discourse about what the group wants, and its own income-producing capabilities- the drug trade and money laundering activities. They've garnered the support of the middle class during the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression. While Castano speaks of the AUC as engaging in "legitimate defense" of "honest citizens" against the guerrillas, paramilitaries are guilty of most human rights abuses in Colombia.
             The FARC's "total war" approach- to cripple the state and force an outcome on their terms- is aimed at the state and its members: senators, presidential candidates, oil pipelines, etc. The FARC and ELN attack U.S. economic interests in Colombia and threaten the neoliberal economic model championed by the US, as Nazzi suggests. For this reason, coupled with the kidnapping of US citizens, the guerrillas are seen as America's real nemesis, despite the embarrassment posed by the AUC's flagrant human rights abuses. Meanwhile, Sweig suggests, paramilitaries target individuals and civil society, aiming to take over territories and segments of the police, military, and Congress, thus posing the real, ultimate threat to U.S. interests and Colombian democracy.
             "Schizophrenic nation...