Rebels kill six Colombian anti-coca workers

BOGOTA, Colombia - Six peasants hired by the government to rip out illicit crops from a public nature reserve were killed on Wednesday by land mines planted by leftist rebels, an official said.

Seven other workers were injured by the blasts in La Macarena national park in the southern province of Meta, a government spokesman told reporters.

The incident follows rebel attacks that left 17 soldiers and one civilian dead on Monday and is a reminder of the challenges that remain for President Alvaro Uribe.

The staunch Washington ally was re-elected in May and starts his second four-year term next week.

Uribe has 2000 peasants throughout the country pulling up coca plants used by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to make the cocaine that funds its four-decade-old insurrection.

He ordered Colombian aircraft to bomb FARC positions in La Macarena in February after the guerrillas killed 13 soldiers assigned to protect the workers.

Police estimate that coca fields in La Macarena help the FARC produce tonnes of cocaine every year destined for the US market.

Colombia's coca fields are increasingly being planted in the country's nature reserves as growers flee a US-funded crop-dusting campaign.

The government decided not to dust in the parks after environmentalists warned that spraying herbicide would damage protected ecosystems.

- REUTERS