General Del Rio Rojas Named Among Two Most Corrupt Army Officers

By Harlan Pryce · August 9, 2026

Military subordinates were ordered to cooperate with illegal death squads in Uraba while Washington tracked the rot within the 17th Brigade through confidential cables.

A former Colombian Army officer sat down with a U.S. Embassy official on February 27, 1998, to deliver a specific, damning indictment. He identified General Rito Alejo Del Rio Rojas, then commander of the Army's 17th Brigade in Uraba, as one of "the two most corrupt Army officers in Colombia."

According to the file's catalogue entry from the National Security Archive, this meeting was summarized in a 14-page confidential cable dated March 4, 1998. The document bears a title that suggests a systemic collapse rather than a few isolated failures: "Former Army Officer: Colombian Army Crippled by Corruption, Inefficiency, and a Lack of Political Will."

Uraba and the 17th Brigade

Uraba is a region defined by its strategic geography and its history of blood. As a coastal corridor, it has long been a flashpoint where the Colombian state, guerrilla insurgents, and right-wing paramilitary groups clash over territory and trade. In the late 1990s, this area was a laboratory for a specific kind of warfare—one where the line between the official military and illegal death squads became not just blurred, but nonexistent.

For the U.S. Embassy, monitoring the 17th Brigade was not merely a matter of tracking military efficiency. It was about understanding how the Colombian state managed its most violent fringes. The catalogue entry indicates that the source provided the Embassy with a glimpse into the operational reality of the brigade: General Del Rio allegedly ordered his subordinates "to cooperate with paramilitaries" whenever he was away from the area.

This is not the description of a general who simply looked the other way. It is the description of a commander who institutionalized collusion. By ordering subordinates to cooperate with paramilitary groups, Del Rio was effectively outsourcing state violence to irregular forces that operated without the constraints of military law or human rights obligations. In the internal logic of the Colombian conflict, the paramilitaries did the work the army could not officially sanction, while the army provided the logistical cover and intelligence necessary for the paramilitaries to operate.

Document imagery from nsarchive.gwu.edu From the files: nsarchive.gwu.edu

"The two most corrupt Army officers"

Corruption in this context is rarely about the simple theft of funds, though that is almost certainly present. In the Colombian highlands and jungles, corruption is a tool of war. When an officer is labeled as one of the most corrupt in the country, it implies a mastery of the shadow economy—the narcotics trade, land theft, and the payrolls of illegal militias.

The source's claim that Del Rio was one of the "two most corrupt" suggests a hierarchy of betrayal. It implies that the Embassy was being briefed on a shortlist of officers who had completely compromised the state's monopoly on violence. The fact that this information was transmitted via a "Confidential" cable suggests that Washington was well aware of the rot within the 17th Brigade while continuing to engage with the Colombian military as a partner in security.

This dynamic is a recurring theme in the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America: the tendency to prioritize "stability" and anti-insurgency over the eradication of state-sponsored terror. The "lack of political will" mentioned in the cable's title is a telling phrase. It suggests that the failure to purge the army of men like Del Rio was not a failure of intelligence or capability, but a choice. The state, and by extension its patrons in Washington, found the collusion useful.

February 27, 1998

The timing of this report is critical. In 1998, Colombia was grappling with the expansion of the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), an umbrella organization for various paramilitary groups. The AUC’s rise was characterized by massacres of civilians, forced displacements, and a symbiotic relationship with local military commanders. The 17th Brigade's activities in Uraba were a microcosm of this national trend.

While the National Security Archive's catalogue entry summarizes the core of the accusation, the full 14 pages of the cable likely contain the granular details of how that "cooperation" functioned—the specific units involved, the nature of the intelligence shared, and perhaps the names of the paramilitary leaders General Del Rio coordinated with. The catalogue entry confirms the existence of these details but does not list them.

Related files in other archives, such as those regarding the GIEI's reports on Ayotzinapa or various security briefings on Estonia, show the breadth of the U.S. government's obsession with tracking internal security failures. Yet, the Colombian cable remains a stark reminder of a period when the U.S. Embassy was documenting the very corruption it was tasked with helping to mitigate.

The record leaves a glaring omission. The source told the U.S. official that General Del Rio Rojas was one of "the two most corrupt Army officers in Colombia." The catalogue entry does not name the second man.