LATIMES/ BY CHRIS KRAUL : "Ten years after the U.S. began pouring billions of dollars into a largely military program in Colombia, the nation's armed forces have gotten the upper hand in the fight against leftist rebels and their powerful drug cartel allies.
AND: Supporters of Plan Colombia say military gains are not irreversible. Hearts and minds remain to be won, especially in the rural areas where poor youths have few alternatives to growing coca or joining an insurgency or drug trafficking gang.
AND: The aggressive military response has been accompanied by human rights violations. A study released this year by the New York-based peace group Fellowship of Reconciliation found that the Colombian military may have committed 3,000 extrajudicial killings from 2002 to 2009. Many were so-called false positives that involved the slayings of innocent civilians who were tagged as rebels killed in action."
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