Colombia to restart coca crop restitution program

The government announced to restart a crop restitution program in the northeast in of Colombia as part of a plan to attack the finances of guerrilla group ELN.

The resumption of the crop substitution in Catatumbo will go hand in hand with a military offensive that seeks to retake control over the region from the ELN.

Both the military offensive and the crop restitution program are part of an emergency response to a guerrilla offensive that killed at least 70 and forcibly displaced tens of thousands of people in January.

This offensive all but expelled FARC dissidents from Catatumbo and gave the ELN almost absolute control over the region, whose economy is dominated by the cultivation of coca and drug trafficking.

The State of Exception declared by Petro in January gives the government 90 days to decree emergency legislation on the crisis in Catatumbo without congressional approval.

According to the president, the goal is to seek the voluntary eradication of “more than half” of 53,000 hectares of coca cultivations in Catatumbo.

Eradication coordinator Gloria Miranda told the council that government officials have already made agreements with farmers to secure income for a year while they restitute their coca for legal crops.

The government would give each family in the process of restitution a monthly stipend of COP1280000 ($309) for a year, which would allow them to join the legal economy.

The economy has always been based on the cultivation of illicit crops, so that while a legal economy is being consolidated, these peasants are provided with a livelihood that replaces the income from the illicit economy.

Restitution coordinator Gloria Miranda

Petro also said that the government would give the farmers in Catatumbo land titles in order to prevent land theft by the ELN.

The president said that the government would increase taxes on digital gambling and the exports of fossil fuels to invest COP2.7 trillion (648 million) in the stabilization and development of the region.