The approximately 120 Colombian soldiers who had been stranded since Saturday in a barracks on the border with Venezuela, surrounded by coca growers opposing the eradication of drug crops, were released on Wednesday May 12.
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“
Through dialogue (…) we managed to get the peasants
” to let “
the troops who were in the military base
pass ”, the mediator of Tibu, in the Norte de Santander department, told AFP. where the soldiers were cornered.
Earlier, an army official told AFP that coca growers expressed “
disagreement with the illicit crop substitution program
,” an initiative stemming from the peace accord that disarmed Farc guerrillas. in 2017.
The program prioritizes the voluntary eradication of coca plants in exchange for economic benefits rather than the forced eradication that soldiers were engaged in when they were surrounded by cultivators and escorted back to the base. Cano Indio.
Peasants had joined hands to form a human chain to prevent a dozen soldiers armed with rifles from leaving the military installation.
First exporter of cocaine
Tibu is part of the so-called Catatumbo region, the main drug-producing territory in the world, with around 40,000 hectares planted with coca, according to the United Nations.
Luis David Rincon, leader of the coca growers, claimed that the "
government did not respect
" what had been negotiated in Cuba.
They cultivate this plant because "
there is no other way to survive and subsist
", he underlined.
Guerrilla rebels from the ELN and dissidents from the former Farc guerrillas who did not sign the 2016 peace accord operate in the region, profiting from drug trafficking revenues.
Read alsoColombia: record seizure of 10 tons of cocaine belonging to the ELN
On Monday, General Omar Sepulveda denounced the "
kidnapping
" of his men, "
abducted by more than 300 coca growers
" armed with "
stones
" and "
sticks
", and whose "
water and electricity supply was cut
”.
President Ivan Duque has intensified the fight against drug trafficking through the forced eradication of crops, carried out manually by soldiers who frequently clash with cultivators.
With a record production of 1,010 tons in 2020, Colombia remains the world's leading exporter of cocaine, of which the United States is the world's largest consumer.
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