In Colombia, Criminal Gangs Muscle Into Areas Once Controlled By Guerrillas
In Colombia, Criminal Gangs Muscle Into Areas Once Controlled By Guerrillas
December 26, 2016·4:25 PM ET
As Colombia's FARC guerrillas have laid down their weapons, criminal gangs are moving into their turf. There are signs violent right-wing factions hope to sabotage the peace accords.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now to Colombia. The government signed a peace treaty last month with Marxist guerrillas that formally ended 52 years of fighting. It did not stop all the bloodshed, though. Criminal gangs are now muscling into areas once controlled by the guerrillas. Reporter John Otis has more.
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: In the mountains of western Colombia, Nasa Indian guards operate a roadblock. The guards are unarmed volunteers who question everyone who wants to enter their territory. The Nasa are nervous because several of their leaders have recently been shot dead. One of the guards, Jose Camayo, says he was attacked while riding home on his motorcycle.
JOSE CAMAYO: (Foreign language spoken).
OTIS: "The bullets missed me, but they hit my briefcase and the seat of my motorcycle," he says. So far this year, more than 70 Indian leaders, human rights activists, social workers and leftist politicians have been killed. That's according to the Bogota think tank Ideas for Peace. Experts say many of these killings could be a byproduct of Colombia's new peace accord.
It calls for the Marxist rebel group known as the FARC to get out of the illegal drug trade, disarm and form a political party. But now drug trafficking gangs are moving into regions like the Nasa reservation that lie near fields of marijuana, coca and opium poppies once controlled by the FARC rebels.
CAMAYO: (Foreign language spoken).
OTIS: Camayo says he and other Nasa guards have come under fire because the narcos view them as obstacles to doing business. But there could be something else going on. Some think right-wing factions are organizing armed gangs to sabotage the FARC's new political party and disrupt land reform and other policies mandated by the peace accords.
More:
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/26/507021468/in-colombia-criminal-gangs-muscle-into-areas-once-controlled-by-guerrillas
