Suspected leftist rebels killed 34 peasants in a jungle hamlet in Colombia on Tuesday, in the worst massacre since law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe took office nearly two years ago, officials said.
Survivors said the killers pulled the victims from their homes at dawn, bound their hands and feet, then shot them execution-style.
Gunmen from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a guerrilla army known as FARC, gunned down the peasants after accusing them of picking coca leaf for right-wing paramilitaries, police said. Coca leaf is the raw material for cocaine, which fuels violence in a four-decade war.
The killing occurred near La Gabarra, close to the Venezuelan border, 286 miles (460 km) north-east of Bogota.
"They (the peasants) were at the farm, the guerrillas came, bound them and mowed them down with gunfire," a woman who said she witnessed the attack told reporters.
Andres Hoyos, governor of Norte de Santander province, blamed the FARC for the killing. Massacres of peasants is a common war tactic used by outlawed groups to terrorise civilians suspected of co-operating with fighters.
Uribe, a US ally, has boosted military spending since he took office in August 2002 and violence has decreased.
Poor peasants in Colombia pick coca leaf and sell the drug to both rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, a dangerous trade which makes them targets. The United States brands the two outlaw groups "terrorists" and drug-traffickers and is seeking the extradition of their leaders on drug charges.
Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid a year, the Colombian army is trying to stamp out cocaine, hoping to cut off financing for rebels and paramilitaries. Peasants say they have no other way to make a living.
Comments
Comments are closed.