Black leaders who urged farmers to dump coca on run from Colombia gangs

TUMACO, Colombia: There is a price on their heads, and one of them has already been gunned down. Now, the leaders of a black community in Colombia who dared urge farmers to stop growing coca plants are “hiding like rats” from drug lords intent on maintaining their supply of narcotics.

“We started receiving death threats and left our area on September 26,” said Francisco Jacome, who heads the group of community leaders working to halt coca production, in line with a peace deal between the government and former rebels of the Marxist FARC group.