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Afro-Colombians Driven Off Land in Cocaine War

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Tuesday, 17 January 2006

Armando Garces was reluctant to leave his mountain village even after right-wing militia members had gone door to door telling residents they had 48 hours to evacuate, or else. He didn't like being ordered to abandon the only home he had ever known. Then a daylong gun battle erupted between the paramilitary fighters and leftist guerrillas over control of nearby coca crops and transit routes. Garces' town, nestled in Colombia's Pacific coast rain forest, was caught in the crossfire between the rebels above the town and militia members below it. "We hid under our beds all day, and the next morning we were gone," said Garces, recalling the terrifying day in June when his township, Bajo Calima, became a battleground in the nation's long-running drug wars. "Everyone agreed it was time to look for some other future."

 

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