LIMA, (Reuters) – Peru, the world’s top cocaine producer, will destroy 75 percent of coca fields in a lawless jungle area controlled by insurgents, marking the first eradication effort in the rebel-held territory, an official said on Wednesday.
Carmen Masias, the head of the anti-drug agency Devida, said anti-narcotics police backed by military forces will uproot coca plants – the key ingredient in cocaine – over 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of the southeastern Amazonian region known as the VRAEM.
The collection of river valleys is the most densely planted coca-growing area in the world and the favored hideout of a group of Shining Path rebels who got involved in the drug trade after their leaders were captured in the 1990s.
With an estimated 200 to 500 members, the Shining Path no longer represents a strategic threat to the state. But the Maoist-inspired rebels have killed some 65 police and military officers in recent years.
The government’s VRAEM eradication goal accounts for half of the 30,000 hectares of coca fields targeted for destruction in all of Peru this year.
