Colombian anti-narcotics forces plan to fumigate drug fields in a region where leftist rebels this week massacred 34 coca pickers, in an attempt to curb an escalating turf war over the lucrative cocaine trade, authorities said Thursday.
Officials blamed Tuesday's killing in the northeastern Catatumbo region on the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an organization that is locked in a bitter struggle with right-wing paramilitary militias for control of Catatumbo's coca plantations.
General Alberto Gomez, Colombia's anti-drug chief, said Thursday he hopes to end the fighting and avoid further massacres by destroying as much of the crops as possible. The fumigation will begin in about six weeks, he said.
The region is a popular smuggling route because of its proximity to Venezuela and the Caribbean.
A Web site closely tied to the FARC said the peasants' killing was part of a wider FARC offensive to prevent the paramilitary militias from gaining a stranglehold over the Catatumbo region.
The site, Anncol, called the victims, who included three teenagers, mercenary "dogs of war" and "narco-paramilitaries."
Survivors said the workers were sleeping when rebels burst in, tied them up with their hammocks, threw them to the floor and shot dead 34 of them on Tuesday. Seven of the wounded survived.
It was the worst massacre since President Alvaro Uribe came to power two years ago on promises of restoring the rule of law.
Also Thursday, Amnesty International sharply denounced Uribe for accusing the human rights group of being sympathetic toward the rebels, calling his comments "wrong and unacceptable."
In a speech at a military ceremony on Wednesday, Uribe criticized Amnesty for failing to immediately condemn the massacre, saying its silence "legitimizes terrorism."
Amnesty said it had withheld comment to complete its own investigation into the killing, and accused Uribe of trying to divert international attention away from his government's human rights record.
Colombia's conflict, now in its 40th year, kills an estimated 3,500 people every year.
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