Increasingly, the leftist rebel groups, the ELN and FARC, are behaving like bandits or criminal gangs. The loss of their political fervor has cost them a lot of public support. The AUC, which originally began as a self-defense force against the leftist rebels, is also torn by disputes over the desire of many AUC members to get rich protecting drug gangs. The government is mobilizing public opinion to wage a major war against all the criminal activity. This has been tried before, but unless someone can make it work, the country will never know peace.