Colombia's decades-long struggle between left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitaries and the government has devolved into a fight primarily motivated by drug money, Reuters reported Dec. 19.

More than 31,000 rightist Colombian militia members were recently disarmed in exchange for reduced jail terms, but few expect the war to end soon. "The paramilitary demobilization has not in any way meant the dismantling of their criminal networks. Both they and the rebels have an enormous financial base provided by cocaine," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Latin American Program in Washington. "Once conflicts have entered the 'greed' phase, as Colombia's has, they are very difficult to end."

The paramilitary forces were formed in rural areas to fight the left-wing FARC rebels in areas where government control was weak, but like the rebels they soon began to freelance as security agents for the lucrative cocaine trade. Many paramilitaries are expected to quickly go back into crime gangs despite the disarmament.

"The paramilitary leaders who negotiated the demobilization have lost a lot of power. The new narco-trafficking bosses are rising from the paramilitary ranks," said Mauricio Romero of Colombia's National Reconciliation and Reparation Commission.

"Peace processes in El Salvador and other countries were different because those conflicts had to do with ideology," added Daniel Coronell, visiting professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "The [Colombian] paramilitaries are not trying to protect a political platform but a multibillion-dollar business."

FARC, meanwhile, has almost no popular support for its stated aims to improve the lives of the poor, and is mainly seen as a drug-trafficking organization.