SANTO DOMINGO.- Colombia ambassador Mario Montoya yesterday affirmed his nation’s war on drug trafficking has forced the important cartels and capos to use other routes and bridges such as Dominican Republic and the rest of the Caribbean, to transport drugs mainly to the United States and Europe.

Montoya, speaking in the National Drugs Council (CND) conference “Colombia’s struggle against drug trafficking and the global threat,” said around 40,000 hectares of cocaine are planted in Colombia, most of which in his view said belong to Colombia’s drugs and guerilla group FARC. “As the cartels disappeared, product of the government’s security policies, the guerrilla took over cocaine’s production and marketing process. The FARC is currently Colombia’s number one cartel.”

The diplomat said since 2002 in all FARC encampments assaulted by the Armed Forces a laboratory to process and crystallize the cocaine leaf was constantly found.

Montoya affirmed that the war on drug trafficking must be fought by all States, not just one government, due to the narcotics traffickers’ economic power

He said one kilo of cocaine on a Colombian coast costs US$2,000; US$8,000 on the high seas or aboard a boat, and as high as US$150,000 in Europe or North America, where pure cocaine he said can cost up to US$150 per gram.

He warned of Colombia’s “fatal” mix of drug trafficking and terrorism, concentrated in the jungles, mainly from the previous policy the FARC attacked a municipality the military retired leaving it under the guerilla’s control, reached as many as 200 in 2002.