Despite Rebel Losses, Cocaine Sustains War in Rural Colombia

By SIMON ROMERO
NYT

PASTO, Colombia — Along with Colombia’s successes in fighting leftist rebels this year, cities like Medellín have staged remarkable recoveries. And in the upscale districts of Bogotá, the capital, it is almost possible to forget that the country remains mired in a devilishly complex four-decade-old war.

But it is a different story in the mountains of the Nariño department. Here, and elsewhere in large parts of the countryside, the violence and fear remain unrelenting, underscoring the difficulty of ending a war fueled by a drug trade that is proving immune to American-financed efforts to stop it.

Soaring coca cultivation, forced disappearances, assassinations, the displacement of families and the planting of land mines stubbornly persist, the hallmarks of a backlands conflict that threatens to drag on for years, even without the once spectacular actions of guerrillas in Colombia’s large cities.

For those caught in the cross-fire, talk of a possible endgame for the war seems decidedly premature, even given the deaths this year of several top guerrilla leaders, the desertion of hundreds of rebels each month and the rescue of prized hostages like the former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

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