Colombia Leader Plans Coca Eradication Effort

President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday that workers would destroy all coca plants around one of Colombia’s largest national parks, where 29 soldiers were killed in combat with drug-running Marxist rebels.

The day after the battle near Macarena National Park in the state of Meta between soldiers on a coca plant eradication mission and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Uribe vowed to defeat “these miserable terrorists financed by the narcotics trade.”

Tuesday’s death toll was the worst suffered by the military since Uribe was elected in 2002 on promises to smash the decades-old insurgency.

The Macarena offensive will start Jan. 20, Uribe told journalists.

“More than 60 eradication groups will concentrate on Macarena National Park,” he said. “They will not leave until they have manually eradicated every last coca plant.”

Most of Colombia’s coca eradication is done by spraying chemicals from airplanes. But police do it by hand in the national parks, citing environmental concerns.

The 17,000-strong FARC and far-right paramilitary groups set up in the 1980s to combat the rebels are involved in Colombia’s lucrative cocaine trade. Thousands of people are killed and tens of thousands more displaced every year in the conflict.