There is increasing evidence that Colombia’s long-running internal conflict is moving beyond its own borders, reports The New York Times. While drug eradication campaigns modeled after Plan Colombia are being tested in neighboring Bolivia, armed groups are becoming ever more present in Venezuela. Armed militias have set up camps along the Venezuelan border, drug traffickers have used Venezuela for alternative routes, and over three thousand refugees have crossed the borders into Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. Indigenous groups in Colombia have been victims of aggression from all sides of this conflict – leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and government troops - resulting in massacres, massive displacement, environmental destruction, and challenges to livelihoods and traditions. Colombian groups have protested this war, and similar indigenous resistance can be seen in Venezuela.
