Colombia's Deadly Golden Triangle Is Awash in Blood and Drugs

[Judi Lynn]

A monster strain of hybrid marijuana and cocaine’s white gold have made this Latin America’s heart of darkness. Ideological war may end, but narco war goes on.


Jeremy Kryt
Published Nov. 24, 2019 5:01AM ET

TORIBÍO, Colombia—When they kill one of your friends, something within you dies, too.

Jesús Mestizo, known to those close to him as Chucho, was murdered earlier this month by cartel gunmen in the so-called “Golden Triangle” of southwest Colombia, one more victim in a series of massacres and targeted assassinations that have claimed scores of lives in the Triangle this year.

Only this time the victim was my friend.

I first met him in late 2015. As the leader of a human rights group, Chucho was able to arrange for me to meet with farmers growing illicit coca and marijuana plants. Because such sites often are hidden away in remote corners of the sierra, Chucho came along to act as liaison. Some of the farmers were understandably unnerved seeing a hapless gringo stumbling around in their black-market gardens. But Chucho, in his early forties, was a wise guide. He always defused the tension with a swift joke, often at my expense.

Once, for example, when a jittery farmer asked how he could be sure I wasn’t a DEA agent from the States, Chucho said: “Because no agent would be stupid enough to come out here alone.”

More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-colombias-deadly-golden-triangle-where-guerrilla-dissidents-now-rule

[Judi Lynn]

1. More from the article:

~ snip ~

The U.S.-backed Colombian military has a long history of human rights abuses, including some 10,000 “false positives”—extrajudicial killings of civilians that are then claimed as insurgents to prop up a given unit’s body count.

Nasa authorities allege the army is responsible for two false positive cases in their territory within the last three months, including a human rights worker whose murder the army tried to pin on the Dagoberto Ramos Front. Another eight false-positive killings in a nearby district—all of them minors—prompted the resignation of Duque’s defense minister earlier this November.

. . .

WOLA Director Sánchez-Garzoli attributes that in part to the fact that Duque has failed to implement the “Ethnic Chapter” of the peace accords between FARC and the government, which would have promoted crop-substitution programs aimed at replacing marijuana and coca cultivation on indigenous lands, while also strengthening and providing funds for Indigenous Guardia units.

. . .

“Colombia will gain no ground against Clan Golfo, Sinaloa, or the Disidentes until it addresses the underlying lack of economic opportunity and the chasm between rich and poor in its society, he says. “The rich—with their links to multinational corporations— have the formal economic markets locked up, so the poor have no choice but to ‘go criminal.’”