By Juan Diego Quesada and Sandra Cuffe
(El País)
Jefferson Parrado's calloused hands caress the foliage of bushes.
The wind slightly moves the hat which protects it from the blazing sun.
Suddenly, he tears off a leaf and grinds it between his fingers.
"Coca is our only means of subsistence",
says the president of the communal council of Nueva Colombia, a small village located on the edge of the river in which we cultivate the coca leaf, which will then be transformed by the peasants into paste, a drug called “bazuco”.
Colombian soldiers regularly appear in the area, without warning, to set fire to laboratories and uproot bushes, as part of an eradication program established with the United States.
"They're harassing us,
" Jefferson Parrado says, grimacing.
And they intimidate the civilian population.
People panic as soon as they hear the army is coming.
Read alsoDive into cocaine factories, in the heart of the Colombian jungle
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