By Luis Jaime Acosta
EL PLATEADO/SAN JUAN DE MICAY, Colombia (Reuters) -The dilapidated, tin-roofed schoolhouse sits perched amid fields of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, in the small southwestern Colombian town of San Juan de Micay.
Reached by an unpaved road that meanders through treacherous mountain passes, the town is located in the Canon del Micay, a drug-trafficking hub that is the site of frequent combat between the army and the Estado Mayor Central, a faction of leftist rebels who reject a 2016 peace deal.
“Here there is state abandonment. Here the government never brings us anything,” said community leader Fernanda Rivera, as she sat at one of the school’s desks.
The town lacks running water, sewage treatment and paved roads, she said, and electricity is intermittent. The rebels are the de facto government, imposing a 9 p.m. curfew and mediating conflicts between neighbors.
It was not supposed to be this way. Leftist President Gustavo Petro came to office in 2022 promising agreements with splinter rebel groups – stubborn holdouts from the landmark 2016 pact that brought peace to some of Colombia after decades of strife.
Last year, with little tangible progress on further peace deals, he pivoted to a new strategy, pledging that regions still controlled by the groups, many rife with coca growing, would be tamed through massive social and military intervention.
The Canon del Micay was the tip of the spear and would get an amped-up presence of troops and $30 million for schools, hospitals, housing, roads and internet.
The government also planned to pay farmers to eradicate their coca crops and instead plant coffee, cacao, beans and fruits.
But residents in the region who spoke to Reuters said the military was struggling to dislodge the rebels and the promised spending has not arrived.
Soldiers and police have been attacked by rebels and repeatedly held hostage – including this month – by residents the government says were pressured by guerrillas. Large harvests of coca continue.
Petro’s office passed a Reuters request for comment to the government’s Social Prosperity department, which acknowledged the armed forces have not yet consolidated territorial control. The defense ministry said the EMC’s use of small units to launch rapid attacks had put the brakes on social spending.
Projects require approval through an arduous public planning process at a time when Colombia is facing a fiscal crisis and an expanding national deficit.
The failure to date of the government’s strategy puts at risk crucial anti-narcotics funding from the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has already threatened to “decertify” – potentially this month – Petro’s drug containment efforts as ineffective and Republican representative Mario Diaz-Balart has proposed a 50% cut in non-military aid, to $209 million, because of Petro’s failure to “effectively utilize United States assistance in advancing shared goals.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it had nothing to preview about Trump’s determination.
Colombia’s ambassador to Washington, Daniel Garcia-Pena, told reporters this week that funding from the U.S. had already been hit by the dismantling of USAID and that the U.S. could choose to cut about $100 million of programs not focused on drug trafficking if Trump decides to decertify Colombia.
“It would hurt our efforts. It would hurt the United States,” Garcia-Pena said. “It would only help transnational criminal organizations.”
The stumbling intervention may also strengthen the hand of the right-wing opposition ahead of next year’s presidential election, fueling arguments for a tougher crackdown on rebels.
WINNING THE PEOPLE
Despite the challenges, Petro has maintained that the operation will continue, calling on the army to hold firm and on residents to cease coca cultivation.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez told Reuters in an interview that the armed forces have taken control of more than half of the Canon’s 4,200 square kilometers.
The operation is 70% about investment to assure development and well-being in the region’s communities and 30% about military intervention, he said, adding that gaining community trust was key.
“If we don’t win the population, we don’t win this,” Sanchez said.
Taking over the Canon’s largest town, El Plateado, was akin to “entering the Wall Street of illicit economies,” said the outgoing commander of the army’s third division, General Federico Mejia, alleging that emissaries of top cartels used to meet in the area to negotiate drug shipments.
Mejia said the advancement of troops had been slow because the area was “infested” with landmines and there were risks of drone attacks.
Military helicopter fly-overs are frequent in the Canon, but a Reuters team did not pass army or police checkpoints when it visited the area in August.
There were, however, checkpoints staffed by uniformed and heavily-armed members of the EMC.
Army soldiers, who arrived in the town with armored tanks and air support, occupied two locations in El Plateado but did not patrol the streets.
An EMC commander who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the military presence had obliged the group to spread out in small units, but added that the rebels maintained control of the area and had not been weakened.
Residents say change is unlikely as long as investment fails to materialize. In San Juan de Micay, the health clinic and its ambulance were funded with small donations from the impoverished community, not with government funds.
“It’s because of state abandonment that there’s the necessity of planting these crops,” said community leader Edward Rubiano, in reference to coca growing. “There hasn’t been any kind of social investment.”
Reuters visited one coca plantation in the area where farmers said three hectares (about 7.4 acres) of the green-leafed shrub can earn them $10,000 per quarter, many times what legal crops earn.
“There is no crop that surpasses the earnings of coca,” said one farmer as he supervised a harvest.
For community leader Rivera, Petro’s initiative is the latest in a long series of “total disappointment.”
“We thought before that maybe Petro had a way out, help, but it wasn’t like that. We made another mistake,” she said.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta in El Plateado; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Rosalba O’Brien)
