09 January 2011

COLOMBIA: Oil Bonanza Bypassing Locals.

LATIMES/ CHRIS KRAUL/

   There's a oil boom in eastern Colombia in the five years since leftist rebels, paramilitary militias and other armed groups were pushed-out.
    But the locals complain of missing many of the fruits of the boom.
   "We hear about a so-called oil bonanza, but all we see are the negatives: the higher cost of food, the abandonment of ranches by owners who go to work at the wells, and this heavy truck traffic," said a rancher. "There is a permanent curtain of dust and the noise never ends."