Practicing Peace, Living with War: Going Upriver in Colombia

It is disconcerting to share a hotel room with someone who needs to tell you indetail how he learned to use a machete to chop the human body up into unrecognizablechunks of flesh. Vladimiro's military training showed not only in his butcheringprowess, but also in his upright posture, an odd juxtaposition of perfect etiquette andlethal brutality.

A friend had brought Valdimiro by my hotel in Apartadó, knowing my colleagueand I were interested in interviewing members of Colombia's paramilitary forces.Although Vladimiro arrived in civilian clothing, the phone call from the hotel receptionistmade clear that he needed no uniform in order to inspire fear. "You are needed downhere," she tersely informed me. When I walked down the stairs into the lobby, the threehotel employees behind the main desk all made a point of being intensely involved intheir paperwork and sweeping, never looking up as I shook hands with Vladimiro and invited him and my friend Jefferson upstairs. I glanced back over my shoulder—theirtasks continued to be riveting.