Page "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia" Paragraph 25

Over this period in Colombia, the cultivation of different drugs expanded and there were widespread coca farmers ' marches.

These marches brought to a halt several major arteries in southern Colombia.

Government officials said that FARC-EP had forced the protesters to participate.

According to social anthropologist María Clemencia Ramírez, the relationship between the guerrillas and the marches was ambivalent: FARC-EP promoted the 1996 protests as part of their participatory democracy policies yet also exercised authoritarianism, which led to tensions and negotiations with peasant leaders, but the cocalero movement brought proposals on behalf of the coca growers and defended its own interests.