Militias Squeeze Left-Wing Rebels. Barrancabermeja, Colombia -- For most of 40 years, this oil city along the Magdalena River in northern Colombia was a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group. Rebels of the ELN, as the leftist group is known by its Spanish initials, extorted "taxes" from local businessmen, kidnapped at will, ran a thriving smuggling business in gasoline siphoned from a local refinery and controlled most of the cocaine smuggling routes through the coca-rich region. [continues 1599 words]
LA HORMIGA, Colombia-In January, U.S.-funded fumigation planes swept over Juan Saraza's 5 acres of coca bushes in the hills of southern Colombia, leaving three-quarters of them leafless and dying. The planes "will come back to fumigate again," he predicted calmly, as field workers harvested his remaining acre of healthy coca, stripping the alkaloid-rich leaves and heaping them onto plastic grain sacks. If Saraza, 40, doesn't seem worried, it's for good reason. Just down the hillside, protected beneath a canopy of black tarps, lies his future: A nursery of thousands of bright green young coca seedlings, grown from a new high-yield seed brought in from Bolivia. [continues 2115 words]
Critics Fear for Region's Stability LA HORMIGA, Colombia Deep in the hills of southern Colombia, coca grows everywhere. The leafy bushes blanket the deforested hillsides, reaching right up to the only road that passes through this no-man's land, disputed by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and Colombia's army. This lawless region is the heartland of Colombian cocaine production and it will be ground zero in the U.S.-financed $1.3 billion war on drugs in Colombia. [continues 1743 words]
HAVANA - Seeking an end to a long and brutal guerrilla war that has killed tens of thousands, Colombian President Andres Pastrana on Friday turned for help to the region's most famous guerrilla, Fidel Castro. Castro, who once sought to export socialist revolution throughout Latin America, has stepped back from that role in recent decades, saying armed struggle is no longer an effective route to power. Still, Pastrana, who has made winning peace with Colombia's leftist guerrillas the key aim of his new administration, hopes to use the Cuban leader's influence and leftist credentials to further Colombia's latest effort at a peace settlement. [continues 601 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO -- When the judge announced the verdict just after midnight--acquitting all 10 former police officers charged in a slum massacre--the defendants fell to their knees cheering and then joyously lifted their black-robed lawyer onto their shoulders. Shocked with disbelief, family members of the 21 victims simply turned and walked away. "I thought that one or another could be absolved, but not all of them," said Rita da Silva, the widow of one of the victims. Five years after hooded off-duty police massacred 21 residents of Vigario Geral, one of Rio's most violent slums, Brazil's justice system is, its critics say, earning the country another international black eye. [continues 595 words]
QUITO, Ecuador -- Epibpedobates tricolor seems a big name for something so small. Little longer than a fingernail, the tiny frog can easily hide in the heart of a flowering plant, a bright jewel of red and green with shining black eyes. The brilliant color is a warning. The frog's skin secretes a deadly poison, which Ecuador's rain forest dwellers have long used to coat blowgun darts for hunting. When the poison enters the bloodstream of a monkey or sloth, the animal quickly dies. [continues 1109 words]
IQUITOS, Peru -- The speedboat roaring up the brown waters of the Nanay River outside this jungle city last week rode a little low in the water, so a Peruvian Coast Guard cruiser pulled alongside to take a look at its cargo. The soldiers found more than 800 pounds of cocaine base packed in 5-gallon plastic gasoline cans, headed for the Colombian border 100 miles away. "There's so much moving on the river that if you put a hook in the water you're going to catch fish," said Maj. Mark McGraw, a U.S. Marine who since late February has trained Peruvian soldiers and police to fight drug traffic on Peru's 6,000 miles of jungle rivers. [continues 714 words]
The decrease places the South American nation behind Colombia for the first time. RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - In a war on drugs that often seems a lost cause,there is some unprecedented good news from South America. Peru, long the world's top producer of coca leaf, saw a 27 percent fall in production last year, dropping it for the first time behind Colombia in total acres under cultivation. Over two years, Peru's coca acreage has dropped an impressive 40 percent, and government officials are now talking seriously about eliminating illegal coca - the active ingredient in cocaine - in five years. [continues 201 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO The call themselves Planet Hemp and make no apologies for their smoldering passion. "Planet Hemp still likes Mary Jane," the rockers sing on their hit, "Burning Everything." Then the band's vocalist pleads, "Don't treat me like a criminal." That is just what federal police have done. The band has been arrested for promoting drug use, prompting much of Brazil to flinch at the apparent return of an ugly shred of the nation's repressive past. As the young musicians sat in a Brasilia jail Thursday, congressmen chanted drug lyrics on the legislature floor, and the band's supporters noted that even President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has inhaled many times. [continues 762 words]
Peru's cocain harvet withering: U.S. dollars, Peru's war in the air coax coca farmers into growing other crops By Laurie Goering Tribune Staff Writer Guayquil, Peru Two years ago, everyone in this tiny village of adobe homes deep in the hills of the Apurimac Valley grew coca leaf. Coca, loaded on mules and broght down the mountains, sold for $40 an arroba about 25 pounds to processors who in turn sold cocaine past to Columbians. No traditional crop, from coffee to cocoa, could compete. [continues 1267 words]
