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June 19th, 2016 
Awake Goy 
Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : The Colombian government, the military and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) and coca farmers will launch a pilot crop substitution program on July 10. The project is being launched as a consequence of the agreement on illicit drugs that was reached between negotiators of the government and the FARC-EP in May 2014.
Courtesy UNODC
The pilot project aims at testing a model for the implementation of the agreement to substitute illicit crops such as coca with legal crops in a socially and economically responsible and feasible manner. General Jose Angel Mendoza, the Commander of Colombia’s National Police’s Counter Narcotics Department announced that the pilot project will be launched on July 10, in Briceño. The FARC-EP has earlier taken the initiative to remove landmines from the region.
The pilot also facilitates trust and confidence building, said a Colombian source who has close ties to the FARC-EP to this author. The government and the FARC-EP expect to sign a final peace accord in 2016. Colombia’s second-largest leftist guerrilla, the ELN, also has begun official peace talks with the government. A source close to the ELN informed this author that “there is a general consensus for peace and that representatives from the government, the FARC-EP and the ELN agree that it is more important to reach a lasting and comprehensive peace than to be tied down by deadlines”.
Police Commander Mendoza, for his part, noted that it is a good sign that the FARC-EP themselves is helping at eradicating coca with us. Mendoza described the pilot as a major turn compared to Colombia’s controversial counter-narcotics strategies of the past decade. The United States, for its part, has agreed to use small aircraft to disperse chemicals over presumed coca fields as part of the United States’ “Plan Colombia”.
One important point in the agreement that was reached between the government and the FARC-EP in 2014 is that coca farmers can voluntarily participate in the crop substitution program without any chance of legal retribution. Guaranteeing the safety of farmers who grow coca and other illicit crops in areas where right-wing neo-paramilitaries and criminal cartels have asserted their power, can, however, pose major challenges.
The pilot in Briceño is expected to provide valuable data and experience with regard to the anchor points in the agreement between the government and the FARC-EP. The agreement aims at comprehensive development plans with community participation in the definition, implementation and evaluation of substitution programs as well as environmental recovery of areas affected by these crops. The agreement also focuses on programs for the prevention of consumption and public health as well as a solution to the phenomenon of production and trafficking of narcotics.
The pilot and the agreement as such includes food assistance provided to families in areas affected by illicit crops. The process will be monitored by the United Nations’ Counter Narcotics Organization UNODC. The FARC-EP previously welcomed programs like food assistance in a transition period but stressed the need to implement socially and economically feasible long-term strategies that help local communities to sustain themselves.
CH/L – nsnbc 20.06.2016
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/06/20/colombian-government-and-farc-launch-pilot-crop-substitution-program-in-july/
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