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The government says the party cleared large parts of the jungle to bring in cattle and grow cocaine-growing plants.
Colombia has charged the leader of a former fugitive group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). rebel group Deforesting large parts of the Amazon rainforest.
Attorney General Francisco Barbosa said Thursday that Miguel Botache Santillana has been accused of conducting an “aggressive deforestation” campaign for illegal purposes since 2016.
Two associates were also implicated because the group destroyed a large portion of the forest to bring in cattle and grow raw materials for cocaine.
The indictment accuses them of “invading an area of special ecological importance”, damaging natural resources, funding coca plantations and criminal association, Barbosa said.
The charges come after Colombia’s FARC fighters – the largest and oldest rebel army in Latin America – and a day after the fifth anniversary of the peace agreement signed by the government.
Earlier this week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visit country to mark the event.
“Every day, they renew their commitment to build a country in peace and face the challenges that remain,” Guterres wrote about his visit to Llano Grande on Twitter. “They know that peace does not come overnight. It takes effort to build and maintain. ”
A sign of the changing dynamic, the United States as well planning The removal of the FARC from its list of “foreign terrorist organizations” was reported earlier this week by the US media.
Under the 2016 peace agreement, he abandoned large tracts of land controlled by the FARC. However, criminal groups have gone to take their place, causing environmental devastation, according to NGOs and pro-farm organizations.
However, some FARC factions discard they have followed the peace agreement and the resistance movement.
Botache Santillana leads a group in the departments of Meta and Guaviare, the latter being one of the main deforestation sites in the Colombian Amazon.
The Colombian military has tried to capture Botache Santillana and bombed some of its camps.
On the other hand, the State Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies says that since most of the FARC was disarmed as a result of the peace agreement, deforestation in Colombia has increased.
From 2015 to 2017, deforestation increased by 76 percent, the agency said.
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