RIOSUCIO, Colombia (AFX) - Woodcutting has become a deadly business in this muggy, river-laced jungle region bordering Panama that leftist rebels are trying to retake from far-right paramilitaries.
In the latest bloodletting, rebels decapitated 13 loggers they suspected of working with the paramilitaries, said Col. Richard Gutierrez, the army commander in the zone.
Colombia's civil conflict revolves, depending on the region, around the proceeds of cocaine production, emeralds, gold, coal and crude oil. Here in Choco state, the nation's most impoverished, hardwoods are the economic lifeblood.
As the country's only province with both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Choco is also strategically important as a transit route for illegal drugs and weapons.
For the 14,000 people who live on the muddy Atrato river that runs south to north through Choco, simply using a chain saw sold by the paramilitaries is enough to get killed by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been trying to overthrow the government for four decades.
The 13 loggers beheaded by FARC fighters near Riosucio on July 15 were carrying chain saws sold to them on installment plans by the region's paramilitary forces, one of the few in Colombia that has not demobilized to take advantage of a government amnesty, according to local authorities and residents.
'The FARC are trying to control the wood business and scare the population,' said Saul Buritica, president of the Woods of Darien logging company that operates in these malarial jungles.
Manuel Pinzon, a resident of Riosucio, said the paramilitaries had provided local residents with 87 chain saws, filling a void left by an absence of state authority.
'We believe more in the illegal institutions than the legal ones,' he said.
Nearly 80 percent of the inhabitants of this town -- whose name means 'dirty river' -- live off the woodcutting business, said Angel Palomeque, president of the Association of Local Community Councils and Organizations of Lower Atrato.
In Choco, earning $40 a day cutting wood is the best job available, though it means going deep into the jungle, being out of reach for days at a time and, now, running the risk of death. The main wood harvested is abarco, a hardwood like mahogany that is used to make furniture, much of which is sold abroad.
Each shipment of about five or six shaved tree trunks that leaves Riosucio is worth about $3,600, but by the time it reaches saw mills in cities, including the Caribbean ports of Cartagena and Barranquilla, its value is doubled.
Until the FARC was pushed out of this region in the mid-1990s, it would charge a commission of 10 percent to 15 percent on each shipment of wood. When the paramilitaries took over, they commandeered Atrato's ports, where the wood is loaded, becoming middlemen in the business and charging fees and tolls on the river, residents said.
Ironically, the woodcutting industry itself is largely illegal because so much of the harvesting takes place on indigenous reserves supposedly protected by the government.
The local paramilitary bloc, the dominant power in this region since the late 1990s, says it plans to disarm in August. But the imminent demobilization of its estimated 1,500 fighters has opened the door for the return of its foes, the rebels.
The recent FARC offensive hit hard the village of Unguia -- two hours by boat from Riosucio -- from which 70 families fled after guerrillas killed four people who were administrating a government program to recover land from being used for growing coca, the raw material of cocaine, said Rosario Torres, the town's public ombudsman.
Gutierrez, the regional army commander, said the military has boosted troop levels in the zone but the almost impenetrable jungle makes it difficult to confront the FARC.
As in many regions of Colombia, the military appears to peacefully coexist with the paramilitaries around Riosucio.
'The big danger is that now anyone who works with a chainsaw will be seen as an ally of the paramilitaries and be targeted by the rebels,' said Dario Blandon, a government official responsible for protecting human rights.
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