Most days I skim the Obituaries in The Times…fighter pilots from the Second World War, unknown Hollywood actresses, a geriatric civil servant…but seldom anyone of interest to me. So I find myself asking about the criteria for their selection. John Seymour and Nicholas Albery got themselves full-page obituaries in several of the daily papers and John Papworth might warrant one…he has been in the news.

But the only obituary I am likely to get is the one I write for myself…and no paper will print that. Perhaps from now on my purpose in life should be to get obituarised.

But last Monday…September 11th 2006…The Times’ Obituaries Register featured a right-wing paramilitary leader murdered after lifting the lid on the Colombian drugs trade, an esteemed historian who promoted understanding of the deep roots of Christians in the Arab world and a Jesuit champion of the social role of the Catholic Church.

On careful inspection the page was contrived for 9/11 because the Arab Historian died at the end of July, the Brazilian Jesuit died at the end of August and the Paramilitary Commander was murdered in 2004…although his remains only turned up this month. Yet it made for an interesting read as those involved might otherwise have been up for a Nobel Peace Prize, a Right Livelihood Award…or one of the levels of Dante’s Inferno.

Professor Nicolas Ziadeh was born in Damascus in 1907…son of a Palestinian Railway Clerk from Nazareth. He worked in Jerusalem under the British mandate until 1935 when he won a scholarship to study History in London.

Ziadeh described himself as non-political but thought that Nasser’s form of Arab Nationalism had destroyed the hopes of his generation for a more democratic and tolerant society. He was also disappointed that Muslim Arabs had doubts about the patriotism of their Christian compatriots. The Pope should read his book Christianity and the Arabs.

Archbishop Luciano Mendes de Almeida was born in 1930 and was recruited by the Jesuits at 17. In 1976 he was the first Brazilian Jesuit to be appointed bishop. He was President of the influential Brazilian Bishops Conference ( CNBB ) from 1979 to 1994.

Mendes de Almeida was one of a group of socially conscious bishops who worked to put Liberation Theology into practice by dedicating themselves to the poor and the oppressed and involving the Roman Catholic Church in the lives and problems of ordinary people. Pope John Paul II disapproved and in 1985 ordered the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff to stop teaching for a year because of his denunciations of capitalism.

Carlos Castaño Gil would seem to be a most unlikely candidate for a Times Obituary. He was one of 12 children born in 1965 on a small farm in Gomez Plata district near Amalfi in the northern Colombian department of Antioquia. His life as a killer began when he was recruited into a self-defence militia organised by his brother and financed by the drugs boss Pablo Escobar to fight the guerrillas of the Magdalena River Valley.

His organisational skills and ruthlessness helped him to rise quickly through the ranks. But his group fell out with Escobar…allegedly…went over to the opposition and helped track Escobar down to a house in Medellín where he was shot dead in December 1993.

In 2004 Castaño was killed…execution-style…with a bullet in the head…allegedly…while negotiations were going on between paramilitary leaders and the Government of President Álvaro Uribe. The President had offered thousands of right-wing gunmen who dominated large parts of Colombia the chance to lay down their arms.

They could return to civilian life if they accepted a degree of responsibility for the atrocities committed during the years of conflict with the left-wing guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Talks began in late 2002 and until just before his death Castaño was the paramilitaries’ lead negotiator.

The Paramilitaries…like the Guerrillas…financed their operations with drug trafficking and extortion. They became immensely wealthy and influential and were useful allies in operations against the FARC and the ELN.

By the time negotiations began Castaño was coming across as a moderate who accepted the Government’s view that the paramilitaries should admit some responsibility for their crimes and pay for them with short prison sentences. He also agreed that they should hand over some of their wealth and cut their links with drug trafficking.

Castaño fate was sealed in 2001…allegedly…when he published his autobiography Mi Confesión and admitted that money for his United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia came from drug trafficking on behalf of one of Colombia’s main cocaine cartels and that he had been involved in many assassinations and massacres of innocent civilians.

But this honesty and contrition did not go down too well with his paramilitary colleagues who felt they had nothing to apologise for and had no intention of giving up their businesses. They also suspected that Castaño might have negotiated a private deal with the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Times Obituary seeks to scotch any rumours that the CIA might have whisked him off to a safe-house in Miami by insisting that ‘dental records and DNA tests indicated that the odds that the remains were not those of Carlos Castaño were a billion to one.’ But what does that prove? Here. Have a tooth and a blood sample. So the Obituary threw in an informer by the name of Monoleche for good measure who duly claimed to have taken part in the assault on the ranch where Castaño was killed. Hmmm!