War on drugs may doom (Columbian) jungle towns

[HuckleB]

A Colombian military crackdown is driving out the villagers along with the coca traders

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2920318

"MIRAFLORES, COLOMBIA - Back when this jungle outpost was a drug-fueled boomtown ruled by Marxist rebels, cargo planes landed by the hour to unload rice, rum and chemicals to make cocaine.

Cantinas and bordellos overflowed with customers. Instead of Colombian pesos, people paid bills with bags of coca paste, an unrefined form of cocaine that merchants would resell to smugglers. But earlier this year, Colombian soldiers expelled the guerrillas and began clamping down on cocaine production, plunging Miraflores into an economic crisis. Eighty of the town's 200 businesses have closed. Thousands of residents have fled. Food is scarce.

"Bags of brown sugar and pasta used to be stacked to the ceiling," said Daisy Ruiz, the manager of Miraflores' largest supermarket, as she walked through the store's barren warehouse. "I used to have 25 employees. Now, it's just me and the cleaning lady."

As part of a year-old Colombian military offensive, troops are pushing south into dozens of guerrilla-infested towns while the air force and police are shooting down drug-laden aircraft and fumigating fields of coca, the raw material for cocaine. But government control of these frontier backwaters could mean their demise."