Colombia leader jeered in warzone

Indigenous people angry at being forced to live in the crossfire of Colombia's long-running civil conflict jeered President Juan Manuel Santos as he visited their war-ravaged south western region.

Leaders of the 115,000 Nasa people are demanding government troops and leftist rebels alike go away and leave them in peace.

But Mr Santos told residents of Toribio, a town of 35,000, during a tense visit that he would not order the military to quit the nine towns that Nasa leaders want the military to vacate.

"Our military and police are here to protect you," he said. "They are here and they're going to stay."

Less than three miles away, a group of about 50 rebels of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, set up a road checkpoint to demonstrate similar resolve.

Nasa leaders, who have gained fame over the years for standing up to Colombia's heavily armed groups with only wooden staffs to protect them, confronted the rebels and asked them to leave. After several hours, they did.

"We don't want them here. Not them, not the others. War is a bad solution," said James Yatacue, leader of the Association of North Cauca Indigenous Councils. "Militarisation is no guarantee of security."

People in the region have been victims of constant attacks, including a motorcycle bomb explosion on Tuesday in the nearby town of Argelia that killed a nine-year-old boy and wounded five other children.

Argelia's mayor, Elio Arada, said security forces had blamed the Farc, which has been fighting a succession of Colombian governments for nearly half a century.

The largely rebel army says it is fighting for more equal distribution of land.

But it is also involved in cocaine trafficking, and the Cauca region where the Nasa live is major corridor for illegal armed groups that smuggle the drug to the nearby Pacific coast, where it is loaded in boats and semi-submersibles.

Illegal armed groups are also involved in unlicensed gold mining in the region.