AUC may refer to,

• Ab urbe condita, Latin for "from the founding of the city" (of Rome), used for calculation of dates. (Also as Anno Urbis Conditae, "in the year from the founding of the city".)
• African Union Commission
• The technique of analytical ultracentrifugation, combining sedimentation equilibrium and sedimentation velocity experiments
• The IATA code for the Santiago Pérez Quiroz Airport in Arauca, Colombia
• Area under the curve, in mathematics, including:
  • Area under the curve (pharmacokinetics), regarding plasma drug concentration-time curves
  • receiver operating characteristic
• Authentication Center in a GSM mobile phone network
• United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (in Spanish: Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), the main paramilitary group in Colombia

Colleges and universities[link]

• Aalborg University, formerly called Aalborg Universitetscenter, used AUC as the official abbreviation
• Agder University College in Kristiansand, Norway
• Algoma University College
• Ambrose University College, a liberal arts college in Calgary, Alberta
• Amsterdam University College, a liberal arts and sciences college in Amsterdam, Netherlands
• American University in Cairo, a private university in Cairo, Egypt
• American University of the Caribbean a medical school in Sint Maarten
• Apple University Consortium in Australia
• Atlanta University Center, the group of HBCUs in Atlanta, Georgia
• Atlantic Union College, a liberal arts college in South Lancaster, Massachusetts

Religious[link]

• Australian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
• American Unitarian Conference was founded in 2000 by several Unitarian Universalists who felt that the Unitarian Universalist Association had become too liberal, both theologically and politically

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Carlos Castaño Gil
Born	(1965-05-16)May 16, 1965 Amalfi, Antioquia  Colombia
Died	April 16, 2004(2004-04-16) (aged 38) San Pedro de Uraba, Vereda el Tomate.
Allegiance	United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) Paramilitarism Narcotrafficking
Rank	Bloc commander and United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia leader
Unit	Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba

Carlos Castaño Gil (May 16, 1965 - April 16, 2004) was the founder of the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU), an extreme right paramilitary organization in Colombia. Castaño and his brothers Fidel and Vicente founded this group (and its previous incarnations) after their father was kidnapped and killed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in association with other enemies or victims of the guerrillas. The ACCU later became one of the founding members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

AUC leader[link]

In a 1996 interview with writer Robin Kirk, later published in More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America's War in Colombia (PublicAffairs: New York, 2003), Castaño acknowledged that the men under his command committed 'excesses', but defended them as necessary in Colombia's conflict. "Look, the guerrillas hide themselves within the civilian population, they manipulate the population". In a September 1997 interview in El Tiempo newspaper, Castaño admitted responsibility for the Mapiripán massacre.^[1]

In 1997, Castaño later founded an umbrella organization of paramilitaries operating in Colombia known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The AUC is currently fighting a brutal war against the FARC in which many civilians have been killed. The AUC has been accused by human rights organizations of committing atrocities, and it has openly admitted to its involvement in the drug trade. The AUC is listed by the US Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Castaño was convicted in absentia of the murder of journalist Jaime Garzón, and sentenced to 38 years in prison.

Accusations of narcotrafficking[link]

On September 24, 2002, the United States Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Castaño which accused him of trafficking over 17 tons of cocaine into the United States. Castaño announced that he would give himself up for trial in the United States and would accept his participation in numerous crimes, though he resented his being personally linked to the drug trade.

Castaño had become isolated from the organization according to some observers, as he seemed to become relatively critical of the AUC's increasing association with narcotraffickers in recent years and was more willing to compromise with the Colombian state, and thus the remaining AUC commanders might have turned their backs on him.

Disappearance and death[link]

Castaño was killed on April 16, 2004. Acting AUC commanders claimed initially that there was an accidental exchange of gunfire between his bodyguards and a separate group of paramilitary fighters.

Other sources within the group and among its dissident factions claimed that he and his men were captured and tortured before being executed and then buried by order of other AUC top leaders (perhaps his own brother Vicente Castaño and Diego Murillo AKA "Don Berna"), who had become increasingly close to narcotraffickers and their trade. Colombian investigators found a makeshift grave and an unidentified body (yet apparently not Castaño's) near the supposed area of the events. Those same sources alleged that the bodies of Castaño and his other companions were dug up and taken to other locations before the investigators could arrive.

The possible death of the AUC co-founder remained in the air and was the subject of wild and rampant speculation. One of the rumours, dating from June 1, 2004, stated that unidentified diplomatic sources told the AFP agency that Castaño may have been spirited away to either Israel or Egypt, via Panama, allegedly with U.S. assistance. No specific reasoning or details regarding this claim where produced and the parties allegedly involved separately denied their participation.

Sources from the AUC and other local militant factions continued to dispute the exact whereabouts of Carlos Castaño. His personal and financial connections between narcotraffickers and other sectors of society could have allowed for their possible collaboration in his conspicuous disappearance or murder. Despite these claims, the truth regarding Castaño's exact condition remained unknown.

On August 23, 2006, Colombia's Attorney General publicly ordered the capture of his brother Vicente Castaño and seven other individuals, accusing them of being involved in Carlos Castaño's apparent death. Alleged witnesses to the crime stated that Castaño's body was apparently dismembered and incinerated.^[2][3]

Castaño's skeleton was recovered from a shallow grave on September 1, 2006 and identified through DNA testing by the Colombian government authorities. His brother's second lieutenant named Jesús Roldán AKA "MonoLeche", a former Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación) guerrilla who later joined the paramilitaries, confessed to his murder and led authorities to the grave.

See also[link]

• United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
• Paramilitarism in Colombia
• Colombian Armed Conflict

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Journal articles[link]

• McDermott, Jeremy "Colombian paramilitary leader murdered.", Janes Intelligence Review; June 2004, Vol. 16 Issue 6, pp8–9

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2011)

Lisa Anderson is the President of the American University in Cairo, Egypt. She assumed this position in January 2011 after having served as Provost of the same institution from September 2008 through December 2010. Her academic background is as a professor of international relations, with special expertise in state formation and regime change. As a specialist on Libya, she has made numerous media appearances in connection with the political turmoil that erupted there in 2011.

Anderson holds a Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University, where she also received a certificate from the Middle East Institute.

From 1981 to 1986, Anderson was an assistant professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. In 1986, Anderson joined the faculty of Columbia University. Anderson was James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs and served as director of Columbia's Middle East Institute from 1990 to 1993. From 1997 until 2007 she served as dean of the faculty.

Anderson was president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in 2003,[1] and chair of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council. She is a member of the council of the American Political Science Association and serves on the board of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. She is member emerita of the board of Human Rights Watch, where she served as co-chair of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Selected publications[link]

• Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Columbia University Press, 2003)
• The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980 (Princeton University Press, 1986)
• Transitions to Democracy, Editor (Columbia University Press, 1999)
• The Origins of Arab Nationalism (co-editor; Columbia University Press, 1991)

External links-[link]

• Official profile from the American University in Cairo

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