Bogota, Colombia – About 3,000 armed troops were deployed to one of Colombia’s most pristine national parks Wednesday as part of a bold operation to clear the rebel-controlled region of cocaine laboratories and the plants used to make the drug.
It is the largest coca-eradication drive in Colombia’s history and could lead to battles with the country’s main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which makes money by cocaine trafficking, warned Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro.
“It’s going to be very difficult because this is the FARC’s territory,” said Castro, the national police chief, before departing for the park. “This is an extremely risky operation.”
President Alvaro Uribe vowed last month to destroy all the coca fields in Sierra Macarena National Park after the rebels killed 29 soldiers in a surprise attack just outside the preserve.
The rebel group has not commented on the plan, but the advance notice has given the rebels plenty of time to prepare.
Uribe blamed the Dec. 27 assault, in which the guerrillas outgunned the soldiers nearly five to one, on the rebels’ increased wealth from drug trafficking and their use of the Macarena nature preserve as a refuge to grow coca.
U.S.-owned fumigation planes spray weed killer over tens of thousands of acres of Colombian coca fields each year but bypass the country’s 36 nature parks because of environmental concerns – a point not overlooked by coca farmers, who have invaded at least 11 of the parks, Castro said.
The December attack was the deadliest on government forces since Uribe took office three years ago on a promise to wipe out the rebels.
