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Drug-running guerrillas have repelled military efforts to retake a slice of southwest Colombia — a virtual microstate where the rifle rules.<\/p>\n
No one enters or leaves without the guerrillas’ say-so, state-issued IDs are worthless and cocaine production is not just tolerated, but encouraged.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Micay Canyon, a lush mountain-fringed valley in southwest Colombia where the self-styled Estado Mayor Central (Central General Staff) are the law.<\/p>\n
On dirt roads leading into the valley, rifle-wielding rebels — some in camouflage, some in civilian clothes — stop every bike, car or truck trying to enter.<\/p>\n
The men at the checkpoints demand to see a rebel-issued ID card, which must be renewed every year and also serves as an entry permit.<\/p>\n
Outsiders are rarely allowed access. But once through the barricades, Micay has the trappings of a state within a state.<\/p>\n
Residents pay $17 a year for access to ambulance care. Miners pay a cut of their illicit profits to local committees. Sex workers must get rebel-mandated health checks.<\/p>\n
There are no police to be seen and no evidence of government-run schools, hospitals or municipal services.<\/p>\n
In October, Colombian President Gustavo Petro launched Operation Persius to retake control of the area and capture EMC leaders.<\/p>\n
Their grip on Micay had become a direct challenge to the primacy of the state, a\u00a0symbol of Petro’s failed promises to bring peace, and a security threat to a UN climate summit happening in nearby Cali.<\/p>\n
But Operation Persius suffered a series of humiliating and deadly setbacks.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, AFP reporters inside EMC territory witnessed 28 captured police and one soldier being marched out of the territory under a hail of abuse.<\/p>\n
“Get out!” a furious mob shouted as the captives walked with heads bowed.<\/p>\n
Among them was Army Major Nilson Bedoya.<\/p>\n
“I’m thinking of my family, my wife, my son Nicolas. They are waiting for me at home,” he said testily amid the jeers.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, five soldiers were killed by a bomb buried in a road embankment.<\/p>\n
They had been trying to reinstall a bridge destroyed by rebels. <\/p>\n
– ‘Bringing war instead’ –<\/p>\n
Life in Micay Canyon is dangerous and expensive, and poverty is pervasive — despite being a center for one of the world’s most lucrative crops.<\/p>\n
Locals quietly express unease about both the government and the rebels.<\/p>\n
“We are scared, fearful, desperate, hopeless, and sad. That is what we feel in our hearts,” a 67-year-old, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals, told AFP.<\/p>\n
The guerrillas have convinced many that government troops will burn down homes and spray the coca crop, leaving them with no work and no income.<\/p>\n
In reality, Petro’s government has sworn off forced coca eradication.<\/p>\n
But the midnight din of military flights followed by booming explosions does little to convince locals that the state is friendly.<\/p>\n
Some locals, speaking in hushed tones, wearily confess that they have been ordered by the guerrillas to confront and help expel the military.<\/p>\n
AFP reporters witnessed swaths of empty coca fields, with workers redeployed to drive the army out of two nearby areas.<\/p>\n
Scores of locals were seen confronting a group of soldiers, shouting\u00a0at them to leave the area.<\/p>\n
Outnumbered and not willing to shoot unarmed civilians, the soldiers were forced to retreat.<\/p>\n
There is deep disillusion with the government and Petro in particular.<\/p>\n
A former guerrilla himself, Petro won 81 percent of the votes in the broader province surrounding Micay.<\/p>\n
“It was supposed to be the government of change, and look at how it attacks us, bringing war instead,” said one 37-year-old coca harvester.<\/p>\n
Petro claims that the locals are being “instrumentalized” by armed groups.<\/p>\n
For researcher Juana Cabezas of the NGO Indepaz, “Colombia has not returned to the old days” of a decades-long conflict that killed hundreds of thousands across the country.<\/p>\n
But since the main guerrilla group, the FARC, disbanded in 2017 there has been a fracturing and reconfiguration of armed groups.<\/p>\n
For residents in Micay Canyon, those hopes for peace are a distant memory.<\/p>\n
“Our dreams are dashed,” says one woman, widowed after her husband’s murder.<\/p>\n
“The only thing left for us is death.”<\/p>\n
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