Colombia: Black Leaders Who Urged Farmers to Dump Coca on Run from Colombia Gangs

Nov 7, 2017 | Florence Panoussian, Agence France-Presse
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There is a price on their heads, and one of them has already been gunned down. Now, the leaders of a black community in Colombia who dared urge farmers to stop growing coca plants are "hiding like rats" from drug lords intent on maintaining their supply of narcotics. Armed men -- whom the leaders are too afraid to name, even in hiding -- showed up in their village and publicly threatened them, putting a five-million peso ($1,500) bounty on their heads for pushing their communities to end the illegal cultivation of coca leaves.