Inside Colombia’s cocaine canyon

Members of the Carlos Patino front of the dissident FARC guerrilla patrol next to coca crops in Micay Canyon, a mountainous area and EMC stronghold in Cauca Department, southwestern Colombia. — AFP

BRIGHT green coca plantations blanket the mountains along the narrow Micay canyon, the heartland of Colombia’s holdout guerillas who rule their fiefdom like a mini-state.

Along dirt roads, in makeshift laboratories, farmers openly mix coca leaf with petrol to extract a paste used to make the pure cocaine that is one of Colombia’s top exports.